


Heart. Alpha. Line. End.

by zanni_scaramouche



Series: Heart. Alpha. Line. End [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Drug Use, F/M, Family Dynamics, Godfather AU, Human AU, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mafia AU, Mob Boss Derek Hale, Organized Crime, READ NOTES, Slow Burn, Stripper Stiles Stilinski, Violence, criminals who might not be as criminal as you think, no powers, plot heavy, slooooooow, slow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2020-04-06 12:02:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 58,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19062280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zanni_scaramouche/pseuds/zanni_scaramouche
Summary: The powerful crime family known widely as The Pack is lead ruthlessly by Talia Hale. When her only and estranged son, Derek, reluctantly returns home he quickly becomes entwined with the family business he’s tried to avoid.The Godfather AU - READ THE NOTES for more tags





	1. Old Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, did you see that it's a SLOW BURN? 
> 
> TIMELINES play a big part in this movie/fic so make sure to watch those headers
> 
> The POV does change. I hope you don't find it off putting, but being based on the film left little option. It was... interesting to write. 
> 
> It was difficult to weave a strong romantic narrative into a story that didn't have one, so that's why Sterek takes so long to show up and when it does it has little to do with the major plot arc. I think I added enough side stories to kinda sorta weave it in nicely-ish
> 
> Mentions of suicide, rape of a minor, kidnapping of a minor, symptoms of ptsd, drug use, drug addiction, alcohol, and violence, and the aftermath of all of these, are all heavily featured in this story. I don't think I went explicit on any of them, but if there are ANY sensitivities I would not continue reading. Stay safe <3

2010

The desk is the same. With the weight of a sarcophagus it commands attention and anchors the wall of windows behind it. A quick flick of his eyes reveals only a stark silhouette of the room's solitary occupant who makes no move to acknowledge his presence. It is a moment given and he uses it to scan the room. Dark furniture looms against the walls like ancient sentries melding into the shadows. The hearth is pitch and hollow beneath the mantle, at contrast with the blinding white sunlight he squints against on his way forward.

Once, so long ago the memory is fuzzy, he’d had a string of nightmares like this. Inhaling he straightens his spine and rolls his shoulders to shrug off the weight of the past. The room feels muted, claustrophobic and airless, but he can’t place why. Lingering events these walls have stood witness to waft around his head in tendrils of distant laughter and half shaded figures moving in his peripheral. A twitch of his hand. It is involuntary and he’s quick to s it with a flex and clench of his fist. The bite of his nails on the skin of his palm silences the noise and pulls him to the present.

When he takes his final steps to the brim of the desk, like a man walking the plank, his mind catches what’s throwing him off. There’s a carpet beneath his boots. Its fresh face stands out in a room filled with relics, it’s clash no doubt a statement to its short life expectancy. With his eyes turned to stare at its garrish herringbone face, goose flesh roll out along his skin. It is a feeling he is increasingly familiar with.

"Januszek," she says his name like she's chiding a child.

He tries not to let instinctual shame heat his face like a naughty boy before his mother. Something in his stomach slowly sinks. He blinks and sees his sons marked skin tattooed to the back of his lids. Anger he’s relied on to get him here fills and strengthens his voice.

"Alpha Hale."

She lets the moment sit in heavy silence. It feels like a test. Finally she turns in her chair to look at him with the appraising eyes of a hunter. He does not bow his head. He’s not prey, not yet.

"There was a time I would have expected to see you at a celebration like this," She let's her eyes wander over his frame and catch on the badge resting by his belt, "Luckily, I know better than to think you came for the cake."

She speaks and he stands at parade rest. Instinct. Something in him still believes she holds rank regardless of the years past. Every muscle in his body tenses in effort to hold position, no doubt the movement of stepping out would draw her attention. If the gleam in her eyes is anything to go by she’s already noticed the easy deference. Silence fills the space between them like a gas leak waiting for a spark. There's a reason he came. Once he stood in this room as a different man, he lets his mind compartmentalize in a way it hasn't done since.

"It's my son."

She shows her teeth in a canine smile. John thinks of why he left this town. His new county on the opposite coast may have its own issues, but it doesn’t have the Hales.

"Yes, I do remember the boy,” the Alpha purrs. She’s relaxed into her chair like a throne, assured she knows the game to follow. “A beautiful christening, I recall."

He can't hide the grimace passing over his face. With a clatter of bones his parents roll in their graves every time it's acknowledge their grandson came into the world a Catholic.

The grimace shifts into a scowl as he speaks, "Two months ago he was attacked. The offenders slipped from a proper trial." His jaw clicks when the words leave his mouth with a short snap of his teeth.

He watches as her smile sharpens around the edges. The sight of it causes the pit of his stomach to sink deeper. A police officer knows to trust his gut in all things, but for the first time another emotion outweighs his sense of reason. Fury.

"Over a decade has passed since you've been considered a friend, Januszek.” The lilting words are at odds with the familiar way the name rolls from her lips. He remembers teaching her how to pronounce it. “Communication is a key part of friendship. So tell me, why haven't you been my friend for so long?"

Talia knows, the question is nothing more than a dare. He doesn’t step up to it. In this he is still a chickenshit coward and always will be.

Her presence hovers on the fringe of his vision. She’s in every corner of the room. Standing behind him to whisper in his ear, and across the desk with a hand on Talia's shoulder, and just past her at the window seat with a book. She’s standing at the door calling his name, urging him to leave. The air feels weighted with the memory of her perfume and he hopes the way he holds his breath, in fear it won’t be there and fear it’ll choke him still, is subtle.

A name sits in the air between them. Heard by both but spoken by neither. Talia’s impatience grants him the mercy of breaking silence and allowing him to hide his long draw of breath.

"My husband was a close friend of your wife. Godfather of your son, in fact.” Talia's narrow eyes lock on him to see if he’ll call her out on it, not quite a lie but an omission so large it wasn't the truth. She’s had her fun, now there’s a flare of the temper he used to know so well in her, this is business. “As they are no longer here I feel obliged to create a friendship between us in honour of theirs."

It's a trap. Knowing does not stop the memory of holding pale trembling limbs in place while he wiped the blood away under hospital lights. Men with smirking faces and money in their palms had shaken hands and walked free. His son wouldn’t look him in the eye anymore. The last ball of dread rolling in his stomach now boils into one of rage.

"Your friendship would be an honour, Alpha Hale.” His voice is steady and calm, the same he would use to thank a librarian. In the small of his back his fists are clenched white. “Thank you for your generosity."

He bows his head to leave and doesn't think about the ghost of his dead wife laughing in the shadows of the room. No matter how short a lifespan it had, the rug was a bad choice.

x

"Derek!" He turns around to an armful of warm skin and narrowly manages to find a cheek to kiss before she bounces out of his arms again. "You didn't tell me your family was rich!" She laughs with a hand fanned out towards the crowd gathered in the courtyard, or maybe the large heritage house he grew in, or it could be the small stage where the small orchestra band plays unobtrusive music.

"It's not something I promote, Braeden." 

He flushes and smooths a hand against the tail end of his chokingly tight tie to dry his palm. The sleek car which brought her glides down the drive and without its distracting shine he's left trying not to stare at the lilac silk clinging to his girlfriend’s form.

"No, you wouldn't." She eyes him, a teasing tilt to her head when she notices his wandering eyes. 

The novelty of seeing her out of uniform has yet to fade, despite the two years they’ve been together. Making the first move she takes his arm in hers and turns him towards the crowd. 

"Do they all know your sister?" She mock whispers at his side.

It's his turn to laugh, but it's accompanied by an awkward rub of the back of his heated neck. The noise of the crowd is a low hanging cloud of women trying to laugh louder than their peers, the bass notes of men trying to one up each other, and children running between them all. Already eyes skim over the rims of crystal glasses to catch a glimpse of his entrance into the backyard. He’d been a kid when he left. He wonders what they see now.

"Most of them, yeah." He tugs at his symmetrically measured cuffs. The suit feels restrictive and light compared to the heavy comfort of the stiff vest and weighted belt he’s familiar with.

"Really?" She asks with skepticism.

Hesitant and with effort he deliberately scans his eyes across a crowd trying too hard not to stare back. Numerous faces are attached to names in bold capitalized article headlines she’d seen or bulletins on the national board. This could be his greatest mistake. He finds an easy target.

"There's our oldest sister, Laura." The woman in question is standing by the catering table with hawk eyes roaming over the staff. "Just finished Harvard, ready to rule us all soon enough," He says out of the corner of a wry smile. Laura’s clipboard is poised in her hands like a weapon while she now lectures a poor waiter. After a lifetime of experience being on the other end of Laura’s wrath he does not pity the man.

“Isn’t it a bit odd?” He peers over to see what she’s looking at, but Braeden’s eyes remain on Laura. “With an estate like this I’d think your family to err on the side of tradition. Why would she take over instead of you?” She cocks her head back to him and he’s already shaking his head.

“Seniority has always ruled in the family, not gender.” He tries not to choke on the ash the words leave in his mouth from repetition throughout his childhood. 

He doesn’t look at her as they keep marching forward and pass the fringes of loose groups gathered on the stone patio. With great effort he navigates them without meeting a single person's eyes, quite the feat considering how many bodies and elbows he encounters. 

“We were raised knowing she’d inherit everything.” He finishes half in thought.

Braeden slows, takes two glasses from a waiter with a charming smile, and turns back to him with the shine of inquisition in her eyes. “And you don’t resent her? Couldn’t you challenge her for it?”

He keeps himself from flinching but can’t help the way he keeps his eyes low on the glass she hands him. To her a challenge means legal documentation and a few signatures in court for larger inheritance money. To his family it would be quite the violent affair for a title he had no intention to hold.

“Laura’s worked for it,” he takes a quick sip and remembers Perseco upsets his stomach as he swallows. “She wants it.”

He lets the rest to be inferred while he licks the remnants of champagne from his lips. Like magnets his eyes glance up at the right second to find a familiar face step out of the main door of the house. The man gives him a blank look Derek’s grown to interpret as a smile.

“Someone you know?” Braeden asks when she sees him looking.

“Deaton,” He gestures, useless since she’s already caught sight of him. Derek’s mouth stays open and empty when he realizes he doesn't know what to say about the man. Silently he curses and searches for another person of innocent interest to focus on as he fumbles through something. "Our family doctor." 

Not a complete lie. A thin scar along Cora’s temple had been his stitching handiwork.

Thinking of Alan Deaton brought the same feelings thinking of the staircase bannister would, a fondness based solely on familiarity and unquestioned stability. It would be a push to say he likes the man, with the way he evades every question with cryptic words and a blank expression, but his presence is comforting. Braeden accepts the answer and turns back to the crowd, her eyes too intuitive for her own good.

“And over there, by the band?" She nods her head over.

"The redhead and company?” They stand in a crowd, but the couple are particularly effervescent. “Lydia and Jackson, classmates of Laura’s. She used to babysit Cora."

A flash of the sun light catches Lydia's finger. It’s a recent addition Derek’s only heard the murmurs of in the last few weeks. They’re practically smiling into each other’s mouths as they sway. Derek feels his stomach clench when he sees Braedens small grin at the couple. Two years made it the most serious he’d been with a girl, but he’s got no mind on changing their status quite yet. Today she would be the first girl he’s brought anywhere near his family. It’s a big enough step for now. He exchanges his full flute for a sweating brown bottle in an ice bucket nearby. His fingers busy themselves with the label while Braeden searches the crowd spread out on the steps and the garden below.

"What’s his story?" 

He follows her gaze to see one of the men, Vernon Boyd. Shoulders wide enough to fill out a doorway and his weight firmly shifted to the balls of his feet. The number of words they've exchanged is less than the fingers on one hand. To Derek he’s the man who saved his little sister. Under the fine hem work of Boyd’s custom cut blazer is a knife scar on the span of his back Derek’s never seen but knows is there. None of this he will tell Braeden.

"He's teaching Cora how to drive?" It comes out as a half remembered fact from a late night phone call across time zones. Braeden’s eyebrows match his in height when he says it. Picturing Boyd in his sister's VW beetle is hard to do simply because his size alone would make it near impossible, regardless of the paint job which proudly brings to mind ‘bubble gum’.

"Good driver." Derek offers. One of the best he’s seen, though he recalls with amusement when Cora complained about the speed rules Boyd implemented.

"Okay," Braedon hums the word through pursed lips, reflecting her disbelief but unwillingness to pursue further. Thankfully an applause breaks out and their attention is drawn to the band shuffling around the stage.

"There's Cora. You can ask her yourself when she's done." He gestures with his unopened bottle where the band has stepped off and Cora is making her way onstage.

Derek can’t help the wide smile spreading across his face at the sight of her. He claps and whoops with the younger half of the crowd as she needlessly introduces herself. It’s been years since the incident, but it still shocks him to see the confidence she portrays to the audience while she laughs and banters with them.

She is the sole reason he’s returned. When he left he’d been immature and selfish. After pulling his head from his ass, and a scathing call from Laura, he’s made a serious effort to reconnect with his youngest sibling. Every week without fail he calls to talk, or rather listens to her complain and makes agreeable noises. Making up for his absence at a critical time would be impossible, but if he could control the future he’d make sure never to repeat the mistake of leaving her.

Her hands are steady when they greet the baby grand centre stage. Pride swells in him as the air fills with melody, but a bitter aftertaste comes with the notes he’s heard countless times. She’s playing Talia’s piece. Derek keeps his eyes on his sister and doesn’t look for the woman he knows won't be in the crowd.

The press of a warm body against his side is a welcome distraction. Braeden has settled against him, the silk of her dress endlessly smooth beneath his finger tips. Indulgently he slides an arm around her and dips his head to her neck. Screw the eyes he can feel on his back, she smells amazing today. He places small kisses along the delicate skin of her neck and presses into her body as the music continues. She hums sweetly in his arms. Something inside of him glows. The performance ends and he claps dutifully.

"Holy crap Der, she's stunning,” Braeden breathes sincerely. “How can she be so skilled when you can't even hold a beat?"

He smirks against her hairline. "Saved my rhythm for something else."

"Derek!" She chuckles and turns in his arms to slap his chest lightly. He barely wipes the shit-eating grin off his face before he sees Peter coming towards them.

"Your company outshines you today, nephew." His uncle greets. It's no lie. Braeden outshines him most days, her confidence easy to spot and highly attractive. Dressed in silk she’s fit for royalty.

"Uncle Peter," he says with a wide smile. 

They shake hands the way his father taught him, firm on the precipice of being too tight with direct eye contact like there’s a shared secret behind it all. It’s a familiar and soothing ritual he's missed from his time away. There’s a mischievous glint in Peter's eyes. Derek quirks his lips at the thought of the little mayhem he must have caused to put it there. Any occasion is an opportunity to cause anarchy, in Peters world.

"This is Braeden.” He says when they part. “Braeden, my uncle Peter. Don't believe a word he says." They shake hands.

"On the contrary, I'm the only one you should listen to." Peter purrs.

"I'll listen if the lies are more interesting than the truth." She quips back.

They smile, Peter’s sharp and amused.

"As I said Derek, she simply outshines you. I'll see you two at dinner."

He gives a nod to excuse himself and is gone as quick as he came.

Afternoon sunlight turns amber as they mingle into the evening. He shakes too many hands to count, introduces Braeden to the appropriate company, and manages to stop himself from accidentally drinking more champagne than the first mistaken sip. The talk is shallow and half hearted but accompanied by bright smiles and rosy cheeks. No one brings up the past. Derek can see it linger in some of their eyes when he passes by, like sharks biding their time with a drowning man.

Close to dinner he reaches the guest of honour. Conversation flows easily between the girls and Derek feels a notch in his spine release. When he finds himself with few words to contribute he excuses himself, confident Braeden is in good hands with Cora.

Without Braeden at his side he tracks down the handshakes of the inside circle. In parlour rooms men are gathered in practiced casual circles and women with steel eyes congratulate him on his achievements. They compliment his family graciously. He struggles to recall the little he knows about each in return. Sweat gathers in every corner of his body and rolls under his suit, making him feel twelve years old and out of place. God, he hates these things. The fuss and the pretense and the sheer amount of people, it’s revolting. The consequence of ducking out would mean explaining himself, and after all the trouble he’s taken to avoid his mother he isn’t going to let something like a scolding be the reason they break a four year silence.

The dinner bell has just started chiming when he comes through the hall and runs into Markus Whittemore. There’s matching sweat gathered on the man's hairline and his eyes are unfocused as he walks through the hallway. He startles when they nearly collide.

“Goodness Derek, hello. Welcome back," another handshake. "God, what a horror it must have been over there. Good to see you home in one piece. And with a medal! Your family must be so proud.” 

It's not the first time he's heard it tonight, let alone since he's been back. It still smarts.

"Thank you, sir,” he says through thin lips, “Good to be back."

They nod after each other and go their separate ways. Derek’s practiced in the art of not questioning what or who he sees where. Behind a large set of solid wood doors sits the woman of the house. He passes them without pause. Muscle memory leads his feet on a winding trail to the kitchen.

The dinner course has started out the doors, but desert sits unsupervised in the fridge. Or rather almost unsupervised, if you don't count Camden watching over the staff in the corner. Derek doesn’t. Camden notices Derek noticing him and taps the Lucky Strikes box he’s been toying with and raises an eyebrow.

With a small twinge of regret Derek gives a shake of his head. He hasn’t had a chance to catch up with his older cousin since arriving in town, but despite how today has made him feel like one Derek is no longer the teenager he once was, he can’t be hiding from stuffy rooms and sneaking in a back door smoke with a friend for the thrill of it. The fact Braeden has complained about the taste before also comes to mind. He has plans for tonight.

He lingers long enough for deft fingers to swipe a small truffle from a tray before spinning back out to the garden. Camden will have to wait.

Braeden is walking towards the outdoor tables when he catches her from behind. He slips one hand into hers and the fingers of his other brush against her silk covered waist.

She smiles at the chocolate in her hand. "I think someone is trying to sweeten me up."

He lets his own smile tug at his lips. "I think you're pretty sweet on me already."

She laughs more at his absurdity than anything but the sound of it puts him on the moon. Two days and she’ll be out of his reach back in California. He hopes to make the best of them. In sheets as smooth as her dress, if he's lucky.

x

Talia Hale watches her only son cross the lawn with a girl she’ll likely never meet. They are rimmed by the golden rays of an early spring sunset as he wraps a coat around her. Four years running around with the L.A.P.D. have broadened his shoulders and strengthened his stride.

"He seems happy," Alan observes from across the room.

"He is." She states simply.

In the genuine way he greets his sisters and smiles at this girl she can tell he is happy. Regardless, there are signs. His eyes wander to the perimeter every few minutes. Tension locks his shoulders at the sound of a champagne bottle popping. It reminds her of the young betas before they learn to control themselves.

When Derek was a boy he’d cried over a dead bird the neighbours cat struck down. He’d had a bright smile and easy laugh, but his tears came just as quickly. Too much like his father. If she’d had her way he never would have touched a gun.

"Whittemore has been useful," Alan is a smart man and changes the subject.

Out on the lawn, two steps behind Derek, is the son of the man she's met with. Jackson Whittemore looks nothing like his father, she muses. A fact she's certain father and son are both well aware of. No doubt a leading cause in their tumulus relationship.

“Snakes are no good if they get stuck in their old skin,” She says, “If he weren’t useful I’d let him rot in it.”

She never enjoys dealing with the elder Whittemore. The bitterness left in the wake of his expensive divorce and too many enemies hunting his back have dulled any charm he once had. He’s either smart or lucky his performance hasn’t dulled with it.

"What would he think about his son’s activities, I wonder." Alan says and they share a smile.

Markus Whittemore may be a cut throat lawyer, but he is blind when it comes to his son. If he had checked he’d have found Jacksons dorm sitting empty for several years. The boy had been living in a Hale funded house as he pursued his own career in law. It’s no secret Talia had a knack for collecting the wayward sons and daughters of the town. Wasted potential suited no one.

"I’ve always loved spring weddings." Talia muses, her mood slowly turning around. “What better time for a new beginning?”

The thought of the union to come next year kept the smile on her lips. Lydia’s mother is Deputy Police Chief, with Lydia primed to fall into local government. They, too, are no strangers to the Hales. Watching the couple walk hand in hand Talia takes a moment to appreciate the security their union will bring for the next generation. A year from now the couple will tie the knot on the very lawn they cross. It invigorates her to think of the opportunities it will open for herself and, later on, Laura.

Outside the grass was cleared and the guests were no doubt settling into their seats. Talia has a speech to perform for the child she almost lost. There’s nothing to tidy on her desk, notes would be more damning than helpful. While she turns to stand a photo of the family draws her attention. It’s from a different life, when she was younger than Laura is now. It’s not her own face, nor her husband who died shortly after it was taken, which catches her off guard. Wide laughing eyes set in a youthfully round face.

Claudia.

Stilinski’s appearance was more of a surprise than it should have been. The scout Talia had checking in on him told her of the boy's unfortunate meeting. Being unable to gauge how the man would take the news of the offenders walking free had troubled her. Their final meeting sixteen years ago had made his feelings for the Pack clear, but in retrospect it also displayed how volatile he had potential to be when family is concerned. His appearance now is far from crawling back. It is something, though.

Talia slides her stilettos back on under her desk and stands. The heels sink into the carpet unpleasantly and she takes a moment to adjust her balance. Next time she’ll have them pick something thinner.

She speaks to Alan while she moves to leave, "Tell Ms. Argent the Pack will meet with her next week."

X

Alan’s plane lands at six in the morning. He promptly spills coffee on the collar of his shirt when an errant elbow pushes past him for a taxi. By eight he’s sitting with members of the two most influential crime families of the state, if not the country, on either side of him. The shirt on his back wafts the smell of whatever cologne Greenberg wears when Alan moves, but it's exact shade of white does the job of matching his navy suit jacket.

Therefore it is not the reason he has a migraine blooming in his temples. No, that would be the work of Miss Katherine Argent.

"You'll find the benefits and profits earned in exchange for your financial support are substantial, and with your wide network of influence the risk will be minimalized." 

She sounds like a prim school girl showing her work for a conclusion already made. He can tell from the tension radiating on his right side the Alpha’s patience is disappearing. A lifetime of meetings like this keep him stoic at her side, but it’s with monumental effort he isn’t twisting back and forth in his chair like a child waiting for their mother to stop talking with an old friend at the grocery store. The thought pushes at the edges of his lips to tease into not-quite-a-smile which he hides looking to his lap. Quite apt a simile. We’ve truly become our parents.

The Argents have been a particularly dreadful bunch of people to deal with. Alan has seen the photos and heard the legends. He knows the animosity between the two families started as a sibling rivalry over a century ago, but it would take someone quite creative to imagine the two women before him ever being related. Looking at them he sees a spoiled house cat with a mean streak trying to hold ground against a panther.

"What you fail to understand, Miss Argent, is the impact any dealings would have on the Hale connections, many of which are based on our lack of involvement with narcotics.” The Alpha states, the same message she’s been conveying since walking in the frosted glass door.

Still looking to his hands Alan clenches his jaw and stifles a yawn. Five is the worst number of days to spend in a different time zone; long enough to be fully adjusted for a mere day or two before flying back and playing catch-up again.

"Surely there could be new negotiations,” Alan raises his head at the condescending tone in the new male voice, “especially with the generous profit we would have to go around. We shouldn't let personal reasons hold us back from what will be a largely beneficial expansion."

There are many things Alan agrees with his Alpha on. How to handle Peter Hale has never been one of them.

"Our relationships with key players have been the work of several decades. The percentage of those connections broken would be too high a loss with no guarantee with whom or in what manner of time we would re-establish ourselves. Regardless of all else, it is a risk we will not consider taking." Alan hopes Laura is taking mental notes while her mother speaks and shuts Peter out as quickly as he was to butt in.

The meeting wraps shortly after. Miss Argent pushes further but no doubt sees the fire Peter lit in the Alpha’s eyes. She leaves smiling but with the short harsh steps of an unsatisfied toddler. Laura's gaze bounces to each of the remaining people in the room. They land on her Alpha.

"You're excused."

With the permission she was looking for Laura takes her exit silently with a pitying glance to Alan. He stays unresponsive, a part of the furniture in a room where great and horrible things may happen.

The Alpha stands and buttons her suit jacket in one graceful motion. She moves through the space in efficient steps and stops at the side of her brother's chair, a heeled foot behind the back leg blocks him from standing and forces him to look up if he wants to meet her eyes. He doesn’t. He glares ahead at the wall behind Alan.

"Peter, I will not discuss this with you again.” The Alpha’s voice is void of emotion yet rings finite. “The Hale family and it's associates do not currently, nor will they ever, assist in the narcotics trade."

Alan can see how the man rolls his eyes at his sisters words, not affected in the slightest.

"Your dissension is not acceptable in the face of an outsider. If you have an issue with how the Pack is run you know what to do, big brother."

It's not said lightly, something she hasn't pulled out in a long time. Alan catches Peter’s eyes flick sideways when the words leave her mouth. Smartly he doesn't retaliate. The Alpha steps back and walks out of the board room in a steady marching beat. Alan is close behind.

"Laura agrees with him."

If he was younger he might have missed a step at her words. Now he blinks and waits. There's no evidence he gained in the meeting to explain her conclusion, but her sharp note and certainty makes it fact. Either she’ll elaborate on it or she won’t. From experience it’s best to say nothing when faced with nothing to say.

"Camden returns from dealing with McCall on Thursday,” Alan automatically narrows his eyes at the name. 

Past records would reveal no cause for it, but any mention of the slick haired FBI agent they dealt with consistently left Alan off-put. No doubt Camden was currently leveraging something to keep him complacent. “On Friday he’s to locate the Argent compound and report back with information on the supply chain and delivery. He has three weeks and it better be damn detailed." She orders.

Greenberg has the car out front and door open for her before they've made it six steps from the building. The Alpha’s eyes don’t linger on her driver's ribbed undershirt beneath his suit jacket as she climbs in. Alan hands the leather padded portfolio to her for show. Even today a business meeting would never take place without paper and eyes were increasingly seeing what they should not.

She takes it and smirks, "Go find yourself a new shirt before coming back to the house. I've never been a fan of his cologne."

The car door shuts with a thud.

x

It's been twenty seven days since her sixteenth birthday and Cora Hale is finally, finally sitting behind the wheel of a car with her mom next to her. Free time for the head of the Pack doesn’t come easily, even for members of the family, so Cora feels pretty good about managing to snag a few extra minutes with her. Months of practicing in parking lots and side streets on weekends with Boyd have given her the confidence to step up, but she knows it’s owed more to her mom’s indulgence than her skills allowing her to take the place of an absent driver. She counts it as a win still, because not only does she get to spend time with her mom, she also gets to show off a little.

She gets in the car and connects her phone. The playlist that appears is the same one she’d listened to during her morning spent with Derek and she warms at the thought of it. They’d goofed off, trying to make pancakes but mostly making a mess of the kitchen while throwing flour and eating handfuls of chocolate chips. When the Chef had arrived to make lunch they’d been kicked out.

Spending time with Derek felt right, like a missing link in their family finally slotted back into place and things could be like they were before. Peter was cool sometimes, but he wasn’t always around, although when he did hang out with her he spoiled her a lot so she couldn’t complain too much. Still, Derek would give her piggybacks and watch stupid movies and drive them out for ice cream late at night, general big brother things she’s missed. She buckles herself in and tries not to think about how he’ll be leaving soon. He promised to come back for Christmas. It’s only eight months away.

When her mother joins her and sits in the passenger seat she hopes the topic of her lessons isn’t questioned. It's not like her mom doesn't know one of her most intimidating beta's has been teaching her how to drive, it's just she hasn’t explicitly brought it up with her either.

Things start off well. Traffic isn’t bad, they aren’t going far, and the car is insanely awesome. Then her mom muted the music and dropped an awkward bomb.

"Homecoming is soon, isn't it?"

Cora rolls her eyes at the question. No doubt her mom knows the exact date of all her school events. She’s been overbearing since- well, since. Cora’s surprised she hasn’t found the time to join PAC. Or rather, have someone join PAC for her. Her eyes narrow when a paranoid voice sounding like Peter in her mind says she actually has no way of knowing if her mother has done such a thing or not.

"Yeah, it is. Hey, is it up or down for the left signal?" She tries to derail the conversation but can’t think of a safer topic.

It falls flat and earns her a knowing look and a chiding, “Cora,” drawn out from her mother.

"Mom." She says in the same tone, but it’s half committed and she deflates into her seat. At least it was leather, soft expensive leather only found in high end luxury vehicles. Another plus to this temporary chauffeur thing. "Is there someone you want to go with?" Her mom hints.

Mentally Cora curses something really violent and crude. Boyd must have told her. She imagines driving his car into a pole the next time they go for a lesson just to show him what she thought about his promise keeping.

"Maybe. I mean, I want to but I don't…" she hates how her face is already warm. She tightens her fingers on the wheel and the muscles in her legs tense. This was a bad idea. "I'm not going to ask her." She admits quickly like her mom won’t catch the words if she says them fast enough.

A quick glance in the mirror and her mom was giving the look. The soft 'oh Cora' look she hates more than anything. It made her feel weak and vulnerable and like a baby because it also made her feel like mom was going to take care of everything if she let her. So she aggressively doesn’t look at the expression on her mother's face and fists her hands around the steering wheel and keeps going.

"Shoulder check," Her mother chides quietly when she takes a corner too quickly.

They drive in a tense silence and Cora manages to navigate through traffic without thinking a single thing and a thousand things at once but none of them include words like ‘pedestrian’ or ‘mirror check’. She hates it because driving with Boyd never feels like this and she so rarely gets to see her mom, but now all she wishes is for someone elseto be sitting next to her so the coming conversation could never happen.

When they’re a block away from the building her mom speaks again. "I want you to be happy, Cora. You do whatever you think will make it happen, including asking out whichever nice girl has caught your eye."

It's exactly what Cora's been wanting to hear even though she didn't know it and she wishes she wasn't stuck driving the stupid car so she could hug her mom or punch something or run out of sight. To do something other than press the break a little too hard in front of an office building and rub her snotty nose because now she’s emotional and can’t help the way it’s running.

"Hey," her mother calls softly. Cora blinks a few times in hope she won’t do something as embarrassing as cry before she looks at her. Her mom takes Cora’s hand from the gear shift and holds it between both of hers. "I love you, bunny. Always."

No amount of blinking or squinting can stop the few tears falling as Cora nods stupidly, she doesn’t even know what she’s doing but something is bursting in her chest. Like fear or relief or love.

"I love you too, mom." She chokes out sounding angry about it. Because she is angry. This whole thing is a mess. Her mother’s hands have no right to be as warm and comforting as they are.

They squeeze her fingers lightly when her mom says,"I'm going to run in and out. Let's lunch at the Pho place you were looking at, okay?"

She nods again, but just once because she can control herself. "Okay."

It's nice. Her mom is so damned nice, and Cora can't help but smile. Her mom loves her. Of course she does, it was stupid to think she wouldn’t. Still, when her mom closes the car door Cora breathes. The relief finally hits her like a brick wall and makes her giddy. A moment ago she’d wanted nothing more than to be with anyone else, but now she can’t wait for her mother to get back.

Bouncing thoughts of the lunch ahead make her jittery in her seat with anticipation. The last time she spent an uninterrupted hour with her mom was during the holidays, last year. A stupid grin splits her face at the thought of telling her mom about the girl in class she would ask, if she was going to go to homecoming which she isn’t because ew, but if she did, she’d ask her.

She doesn't see it. She doesn't know what it means until her eyes fall to her mother's prone body on the front steps. White seeps into her vision. It was the sound of a gunshot. Her mom isn’t moving. Another shot goes off nearby and she starts to fumble.

There's a gun strapped under her seat and she struggles with the Velcro latch for too long. With one hand under the seat she uses the other shaking one to pull up Bluetooth on the dash and dial the last person on her call history. She's got watery eyes on the scrambling wave of a crowd, trying to see something that might be useful later. It’s useless when the crowd is a mass blur. The phone rings. It sounds unbearably loud in the small space of the car.

"Bored already?"

"Peter,” She gasps, “I don't know what to do I don’t…" her eyesight narrows until it’s almost gone. "Mom's not moving, Peter."

She feels useless sitting in the car, gun shaking in her lap while she checks the clip and fumbles with the safety in a way she hardly remembers how to do. It’s so hard to control her body, like swimming in molasses.

"What's happened?" He snarls.

"Peter, they shot m-mom." She's crying. Or maybe she’s hyperventilating. Her tongue feels thick and she can barely breath. "Al- Alpha down."

x

Peter Hale is not a good man. 

"Where was the idiot driver?" He demands.

Like lava the sober black exterior of his suit conceals the molten fire burning inside. It is revealed only in the cracks. There’s a tremble in his hands he’ll deal with soon. He curls his fingers around the high back of the chair before him to keep them steady. Laura is busy trying to hold court, counting time herding the betas when she can’t even find her own brother.

"He called the day in sick. Says he had a cold, didn't want to spread it." Jackson’s stiff posture tells Peter he doesn't like the answer even as he says it.

There is lipstick smudged behind the young man's ear. Peter doesn’t like that. It’s an added reason as to why Peter doesn't have the patience to be gracious. The boy may have been called on short notice, but it didn’t excuse his dishevelled appearance when Peter felt this unhinged. Order needs to be kept in a time of chaos, damnit.

Peters knuckles whiten around the soft leather and the chair creaks with the growing weight as he leans into it. His mind is full of thoughts of his sister deathly pale in a hospital bed. Not an hour later Laura was sitting in her place. This is no righteous anger, it is spite festering for twenty six years.

One moment he's staring at Jackson, weight braced against the desk chair beneath him. The chair snaps against the bookshelf in the next and loudly falls to the floor. In the act of throwing it he’s spun himself.

He doesn't look back to Jackson as he orders, "Take him for a drive."

He can feel Jackson hover despite the unmistakable dismissal. Peter grits his teeth at the rage he can still feel bubbling below the surface of his skin. When the moment unfreezes Jackson steps forward.

"Sir,“ he says not in the tone of a question or an apology. Yet it is both.

Peter can’t help the cruel curl of his lips as he loosens his tie. He lets the fire inside burn into a different type of heat and slowly ignite his veins. It’s been too long since he’s had the boy on his knees. Jackson’s hair wasn’t the right shade, but his eyes. They held ice.

No, Peter Hale is not a good man.

"Lock the door."

x

It takes longer than Derek would admit, if asked, to realise his eyes are open. The room matches the back of his eyelids in darkness. Another moment of struggling reveals the one other factor he can reliably confirm. He’s tied to a chair.

He’s been in a situation similar to this. Hazing wasn’t uncommon in the Academy, but some of the experienced men had taken a shine to him and let the details of what to expect slip. So when his head had been shoved into a bag and he’d found himself cuffed to a chair he’d been rational enough to stay calm. Being thrown into a brick wall and dragged into a van a block from his hotel today hadn’t been expected. It was hard to stay rational.

White hot pain slams his eyelids shut when the lights come on. The salmon pink of the fluorescents through his skin is still unbearably bright and he squints through the pain. Blinking rapidly he makes out the figure of a woman. The second it takes her to cross the floor is all the time he needs to recognize Kate Argent. Her blond curls bounce when she sits reverse on the chair in front of him.

“Well aren’t you a cutie,” her hand is heavy on his cheek, “look at that stubble! Makes a girl just wanna feel it all over.”

He starts to lean away when she grabs his hair and cranks his head in place.

“Your family must be in a tizzy with your mommy down for the count. All the pups chasing their tails and not watching over you like they should be.” Her voice is sugar sweet and sickening. When the words translate to meaning in his head he can’t help his wide-eyed reaction. “Oh, poor baby. You wouldn’t know yet, would you? A tragic accident on the stairs. What a pity your poor little sister had to watch. How traumatic,” she clicks her tongue behind a playful pout.

He snarls and rips his head out of her hold in an attempt to head butt her. The back legs of her chair slam to the ground under the sound of her laughter when she leans out of reach.

“What do you want? To gloat?” He barks.

She smiles like a feline. “Aw honey, I don’t need a special occasion to do that. You’re here to make a deal.”

“Civilian,” he spits at her feet. “Everyone knows civilians don’t deal with Pack business.”

“I think you’ll want to listen, Derek. It’s pretty simple, “ She cocks a lavishious look his way, “your sweet brunette? I bet she’s a screamer.”

She pulls a phone from her skin tight jeans where a video is already playing. It’s hard to know what to look for until he sees a group of girls in the corner. It’s Braeden and her friends back home. They’re holding coffees as they walk, laughing as they catch up. A time code runs on the screen, and when he runs through the past week he realizes it’s counting the current time. Not a recording, live. Kate’s eyes shine when he meets them.

“What do you want?” His voice is rough.

“Your older sister is acting Alpha. Unlike your mother she has a head on her shoulders. She’ll see the potential of the merger, make sure she .” She taps his nose playfully and the best he can do is not react, “She needs to approve the Argent deal by the time she’s christiend as head of the Pack.”

“It was necessary to tie me up for this?” He’s flexing different muscles in his body, searching for whatever give and take there is to the rope. There is none.

“You have a history of slipping away, Derek. We couldn’t have that before you understood the consequences, could we? Plus,” she taps his nose again and he can’t help but growl viciously at her wide mouth smile. “I mean come on Der-bear, you’re irresistible.” And her hands are everywhere. He doesn’t give her the satisfaction of pulling away.

x

When Laura was a little girl her father had chased her around the house. He’d been a monster, the kind that tickled little girls mercilessly and stole their noses. Once she’d run without looking and found herself in an unfamiliar room. A look back to the hall told her she was in trouble. When her father found her teary eyed by the wooden doors he’d picked her up and swung her around.

“What’s the matter little bear?” He’d asked with concern.

“I’m sorry,” she’d sniffled, “mommy said not to go in and I-“ She hiccuped, “I went in, daddy I’m sorry, please don’t tell mommy please, m’sorry,” she’d cried. She’d been so scared of getting in trouble.

Her father had laughed.

“Laura, hey it’s okay Laur, look,” he’d reached out and pushed the door open. The room was a frightening place for her as a child, known only as a place she’d been strictly told to never go. Nothing about it, from the dark colour scheme to the heavy wooden furniture, was welcoming. She’d clung to her father.

“Daddy,” she’d stage whisper in the way of a child, “momma’s gonna be angry.”

“No way,” her father said, “we’re hunting monsters. She’ll be so happy we made sure she’s safe,” He said conspiratorially.

The further they went into the space the more curiosity took over. Her father showed her the dusty tops of the bookshelves, under the fresh rug, how to flip the blinds open with a huge clacking of the wooden slats. Then she sat at the desk in his lap. He showed her how all the drawers were locked.

“Mom will have to check those herself,” he’d said. “What do you think? Still scary?” He’d asked.

“Maybe,” She’d said mostly to be difficult.

He’d hummed back to her, considering, then he bent his head close to hers and whispered, “You know the neatest thing about this place?” She’d shaken her head with wide eyes and pigtails swinging. “One day it’ll be yours.”

 

Laura remembers it as the first time someone acknowledged she would take over. She’d been four.

In the twenty-two years since she’d never questioned the ‘one day’ her father had spoken of. Now she stands before the same desk. It is a few years too early for her liking, but older than her mother was when she’d stepped up.

“Let him in,” she answers to the knock at the door.

Her gaze is locked on a tree in the distance. Derek fell out of it when they were kids. After the crying and the hospital he’d worn a cast for twelve weeks boldly proclaiming ‘#1 baby brother’ written in her looping hand.

It took two days of trying to trace him back to California or bloody hell knows where to locate him. Two days of wondering if he’d be found in a ditch. Seven minutes ago she’d received a call saying they picked him up a mere two blocks from his hotel.

“Laura,” there's gravel in his throat. Stiffly she turns with arms crossed and finds her brother looking like he’s been dragged behind a bus.

“Derek?” Her anger still simmers, but it’s wilting the longer her eyes rest on him. She keeps her arms crossed.

The last four years she’s been walking around looking over her shoulder to share a joke with someone who was never there, to hold a hand she’d never find. Her family fell apart when Cora was taken, and one after another they began to disappear. It was akin to losing limbs. Having him this close again was like a walking ghost. It should have been pleasing, but he’d been in town for weeks and the longer he stayed the more she felt unnerved by his presence.

“Laura I’m sorry. I didn’t know until-“ Something catches his tongue. Dejavu makes her dizzy. In a memory she forgot she had she remembers waking to a watery eyed Derek sneaking into her bedroom after nightmare. The way he holds himself now is the same. Sweaty palms pressed to his stomach, unbalanced feet shifting in place. 

“I didn’t know. I should have been here.” He says with wet eyes.

He should have been, but his reaction is a bit more than the situation calls for. Her feet find their way to him and she accepts his awkward yet forceful hug. He breathes roughly against her. He’s here now.

“When’s the funeral?” it’s quietly questioned but it hits her like a train. Her composure disappears.

She rips herself just far enough to look him in the eyes. 

“Who told you that?” He looks at her, lost. “Derek, mom’s alive.” She growls, her nails digging into the skin of his shoulders. “They shot her in the leg and she hit her head on the fall, but she’s stable.”

“What?” The shock in his eyes is earnest.

“She’s alive.” She says as clearly as she’s able through shock of her own.

She watches it sink in. He’s taken a step back and composes himself well, but not enough to hide the sucker punch he’s suffered. A moment later he settles on a severe scowl and rocks further away.

“Argent wants you to accept the deal. They think she’s dead.”

It comes as a surprise when it shouldn’t. Her reaction is visceral and she steps back until she hits the desk, completely repulsed at the idea.

“You know why mom would never.” She lets the disgust ring clearly in her voice.

The merger, in theory, was a foolproof concept. Argents working in tandem with them would not only create more profit for both, it would save what they used on keeping each other at bay; money, men, time, all of it could go to their major cause. On paper it sounded like an easy answer.. What it didn’t consider was human nature or the true source of funding. Their family had enough history with narcotics.

“No Laura,” Derek’s voice is lower than she’s ever heard it, a boom resembling Peter’s when angered. He holds himself like one of the betas when they’re wounded in a fight, vicious in their defensive state and ready to see it to the end. “I’m not doing this shit, I won’t play this game with you. I’ve been strapped to a chair in their basement for thirty-six hours and they’ve got a fucking sniper pointed at Braeden waiting for you to approve the deal.” He says with an anger that stuns her into silence.

Worrying over their mother is not what’s dragged him like this, as she had first assumed. Laura looks him over closely and sees what she should have before. Scabbing bruises on his wrists and claw marks on his cheek hiding beneath his uneven stubble. His eyes are watery and bloodshot. Thirty-six hours. A seven minute car ride. He came here straight from the bitch’s hands.

“I didn’t know.” It’s an echo of his own words.

He flinches the smallest bit when she rests her hand on his cheek before settling into it. She sees red.

“My flight leaves in three hours.” He says.

“No,” the response is automatic. He’s already left them once after a crisis, she won’t let him run again. “You’re a buffer, a tool used to get to me. If you leave, who do you think they’ll target next?”

His eyes are stony but he doesn’t reply. The answer is unbearable and she knows it’ll be enough to make him stay.

“Derek,” Deaton’s monotone soothes from the door. “Order was upset with the shock of your mother being hospitalized, but you can’t blame your sister. When this is resolved you can do as you please.”

She looks at her brother's face still held in her hands. It’s been four years and yet she still wonders what made him leave her. The puffy skin around his eyes is magenta from exhaustion. He looks like their father.

“I want her head.” She says, certain Deaton hears. “Tell them Alpha Hale will have Kate Argent or war.”

x

Jackson Whittemore does not believe in happy endings. People have assumed he’s unaware of the trajectory of his life. In the spring he will marry his high school sweetheart, just as his father did. He’s started a career as Jr. attorney, just as his father did. He will likely end up divorced and unsatisfied and drunkenly start a fight with men he should not be fighting with, just as his father did. But Jackson has something his father never had.

Peter Hale.

His lashes drift shut as he thinks of the man. Smoke seeps from his lungs and falls through the part of his lips. Danny swerves the car around and jerks out of the dirt road and yet Jackson’s eyes remain closed. Beneath them the car grumbles in a familiar way and their bodies sway in tandem with the shifting terrain. Greenberg mutters in the back seat about secondhand smoke. Jackson and Danny share a private smile on the unspoken joke. Cancer should be the least of his worries.

“Fuckin’ hate makin’ dens. Don’ know why we don’ jus’ rent apartments out like they used to,” Greenberg continues.

Danny glances at him in the rear view mirror when he replies, “Our war doesn’t happen in the city, Berg.”

Greenberg throws his hat off onto the seat in frustration. He’s sweating through his shirt after their exertion, the white cotton becoming unpleasantly translucent.

“Ya well it should. Could at leas’ watch the telly while I was waiting ta’ get shot up.” He says in the pulled out vowel and missing consonant way of his.

“Pull over,” Jackson cuts in, tired of the whining coming out of Greenberg’s mouth since they picked him up several hours ago.

“Dude,” Danny says, offended like he means it.

With a face like that, Jackson swears Danny could have won an Oscar. Too bad his other talents didn’t win medals on the right side of the law.

“Sue me, I gotta piss. Pull over.”

Jackson doesn’t look back when he gets out. He hears Danny mutter ‘May as well join em,’ before his door slams. 

He makes it to the tree line and fusses with his buckle while two more doors shut behind him. Footsteps and voices indistinguishable from so far away buzz in the background while he rolls his shoulders out and cracks his neck. They’d put in half a day of digging and lugging and crap. He hasn’t helped with the dens in years and he didn’t need to be reminded of why. The meat of his hands are raw and blistered where they sit idle on his open belt.

What the hell is taking so long?

He’s peeking over his shoulder when a muted shot zips through the trees, followed as always by the ominous thud.

“What were you waiting for?” he turns to Danny.

The gun is already out of view like it was never there, just Danny’s calm smile and an ease to his stance not present seconds ago the last time Jackson looked at him.

“C’mon Jax, thought I’d let him have a little show before he went,” Danny gives him a smirk. “It's a shame we didn’t get it.”

“You’d think twenty years of seeing my ass would be enough for you,” Jackson rolls his eyes and slaps his friend in the arm at the playful wink Danny gives him.

Their steps are in time on the short trek back to the car. Jackson had dug an extra den just for Greenberg, but he paid one of the betas to pick up the body and finish it for them because screw wasting an entire day on this shit.

Jackson has another cig between his lips when the engine starts. Lydia hates the scent, always rants about the health effects and gets too riled up to fuck him. When Danny pulls onto the back road for the long way home he lets a genuine smile crease his face. Trigger time always gets Danny going.

With his pitchers arm he tosses Greenberg's hat out the window.

x

In high school they gave him a copy of Macbeth. The thin paperback play spent three months collecting dust on his desk before not-so-accidentally being knocked behind it. Derek's confidant if he looked today the slim book would be there. It’s tragic misplacement doesn’t keep him from knowing about the line ‘out, damn spot’ since he’d been forced to watch a horrendous rendition of the play the night before his test. He remembers how ridiculous the nude actress had looked scrubbing her hands and yelling to herself.

Standing in the shower he starts to understand. There is nothing physical left, but he feels her touch everywhere. The hotel towel is scratchy when he rubs it over his head with a frustrated growl. He’s being an idiot.

With vacation time he’d extended his leave and managed to figure a deal with the hotel. Then one week turned into two, then due to an overly persistent Cora, three. He’s supposed to be on a plane right now. His brain feels like fried scrambled eggs so he blanks his mind and works on ritualistic autopilot . Pants on, hair combed, teeth brushed. Phone, key card, wallet. He’s out the door.

Night has fallen before he makes it to the hospital. Deaton may be handy for a few broken bones and the odd bullet graze, but he lacks the machinery to monitor a severe concussion. The hospital is one wide beige hall after another. Nurses shuffle along the halls with a single-minded gaze. He finds the recovery suite where Laura said it would be, but the empty doorway gives him pause. The hall is vacant. His ears ring in the silence.

The door opens slowly under his hands. A body lays on the bed with machines the only guards standing watch, the room full of the methodic rhythm of their work. His heart stutters with dread. Hastily he backs out of the room and jogs down the halls until he finds a nurse.

“Talia Hale’s visitors, room 13B, where’d they go? Did they say anything?” He asks.

She looks displeased at the hand on her arm.

“Hospital policy,” she says like he’s a particularly annoying brand of idiot, “Security came around and brushed them out of here.”

He looks at her incredibly. No one ‘brushed off’ a Hale beta.

“When?” He demands.

With disinterest she answers, “Five? Maybe ten minutes ago?”

The dread has become a rock in his stomach sinking into his guts. He turns abruptly and falls into the hall. At the far end there’s a man entering the doorway to Talia’s room. There’s something in his hands. Derek swears and breaks into a sprint he hasn’t used since training.

It takes him seconds to reach the room and jump through the doorway, pushing with an arm on the guys windpipe until they hit a wall. Then he notices the face. There’s baby fat still clinging to his cheeks. Parts of his skin are shaded sickly green and yellow in the memory of bruises. Where he’s pressed against him he can feel the boy’s long thin limbs vibrating with tension. He turned his face to the side and closed his eyes, waiting.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t- I don’t!” He cries in a stuttering panic.

Derek steps back. Something crunches under his feet. Shattered glass and water cover the floor, a bouquet of flowers clumped together in the mess. Meant to be a gift, no doubt.

Derek looks back to the boy and growls in his face, “Who are you?”

No longer fearing immediate impact the boy squints open his eyes.

“Stiles Stilinski,” He squeaks. Derek presses him slowly back into the wall with a hand on his chest. He goes easily. “My- my dad said she was a friend. I was in town and just paying my respects, man. Hospitals are shit places.” The words are fast and stilted.

The boy could be lying, but if he’s not then Derek’s running out of time. Four hands and eyes were better than two.

“I have to move her.” He says, “Watch the door and tell me when someone enters the hall.”

He shoves the kid towards the door and turns to his Talia. There are too many machines for him to know what’s vital and what’s not. He grabs the IV and hooks it to the bed and pulls off everything else, praying he’s not finishing the job with his ignorance.

The boy pipes up, “You sure that’s oka-“

“Eyes on the hall.” Derek growls. A few machines are already angry with him but he ignores the worried look from the door and unlocks the wheels.

“Right,” the boy nods and swallows roughly. “Yeah, okay uhm. Nurses. There’s a few nurses headed our way, probably because of the, well you know…“ the insistent flatline of the heart monitor is hard to ignore.

Derek pushes the bed towards the door and the kid scrambles out of the way. With a gangly arm he reaches out to get his hands on the foot end and helps Derek guide it out. The nurses start yelling at them but Derek doesn’t have time to listen. He shoves the bed past them and talks over their barking.

“Mom needs a change of view. You can fuss once we get a new room in a different wing.” There’s two of them and they continue to squabble while the group of them fast walk down the hall. He’s lucky they can’t get around to the front of the bed.

“Take the elevator up two floors and go left,” The boy says over the noise while already tugging on the foot of the bed to guide it his way to the elevator bay. Derek spares him a sharp questioning glance without pausing his stride. “It’s the maternity ward.”

It’s smart and Derek mashes the elevator keys as instructed. They edge the nurses out before the elevator doors close. When they reopen the boy leads him in circles until they find an empty birthing suit. Derek lands the bed against a wall and closes the windows before whipping out his phone.

“Don’t expect that to work too well here.” The kid says.

Derek cuts him a glare as he holds the phone to his ear. It's not ringing. He grumbles under his breath. The kid shrugs his shoulders meekly when Derek casts an accusing look his way.

“Cement walls, tons of machinery, no open windows. Really bad mix for cell reception.” He says while gesturing around them.

Derek’s not keen on leaving this boy alone when there’s practically a bullseye target laying in the bed next to him. He’s been avoiding looking at her, the paleness of her face and unnatural stillness too familiar to the bodies he’s seen on the job. He sighs in frustration and finally does what’s necessary.

“Watch her.” He commands sternly with an accusatory finger, “Anyone comes in but me you stop them.” 

Even as the words leave his mouth he’s aware the gangly boy- he can’t remember his name for the life of him -will be no issue for whatever he might encounter. Derek doesn’t dwell on it.

He makes the call quick and to the point. It takes no more than four minutes, most of it spent sprinting through the halls and down stairs. The boy drops like a rag when he sees him.

“Oh thank god. I mean I would have tried but dude I’m one hundred-fifty pounds of pale flesh and sarcasm, it doesn’t take a lot to get through me,” the boy rambles.

“Shut up.” Derek hovers in the doorway when something catches his eye. 

Men marching down the hall. Two security uniforms behind a police officer. They must have been watching the security cameras to locate them so quickly and Derek curses his luck. The boy isn’t wrong about his size. 

“Hide.” He orders and doesn't check to see if he’s listened to.

Smoothly he steps into the hall and closes the door behind him, dreading his immediate future. Stalling isn't something he’s got a good history with.

“Officer Dahler,” Derek greets, the name like dirt in his mouth, “What brings you here?” 

The man hardly hides a sneer. He stops in front of Derek with less than a foot between them. He leans forward on his toes and splits his gaze between Derek and the door, as though he’s rather confused to find Derek still in his way.

“The nurses have reported sights of a known violent offender in the building. You must understand this is a serious matter and we’ll be checking all rooms to ensure the safety of all patients and staff.”

While he speaks Derek’s eyes scan over his company. The two men behind Dahler both have ‘Johnson’ stitched on the chests of their freshly pressed uniforms. He looks back to Dahler.

“Rather unfortunate news sir,” he says. The closest exit is two floors down. None of the windows open. Talia is dependent on the tubes running through her body and completely immobile. The door behind him doesn’t feel solid enough. He looks Dahler in the eye. “I’m sure you’re doing the best Argent can afford.”

It’s the wrong thing to say and he knows, but honestly, fuck this. As a distraction it works for less than a second. The back of his head cracks on the door from the momentum of Dahler’s punch. His hand automatically cups his nose and for a moment he can’t feel his face. The splitting headache pain comes quickly and sears itself through his veins. It’s worse than being shot. Warmth blooms on his chin and chest and hands and the view he has of the spotted floor with a growing red puddle clues him in to the way he’s bleeding heavily.

One hand is braced on the door frame and he’s curled into it to hold his nose when Dahler goes to shove past him. He manages to brace on the frame and shove back with his shoulder, tackling the man and shoving him away. Dahler stumbles back into the opposite wall, not prepared for the resistance. Derek spits out the blood in his mouth in order to breathe and stands his ground in the doorway, his eyes squinting past the swelling he can already feel to get a look at the Johnsons. He’s waiting to see who moves first when the sound of heeled shoes echoes through the hall. They all turn to find Deaton marching their way with suited men behind him.

“Officer, what a pleasant surprise.” The solemn man says with a flat voice. “I think we’re all men enough to walk away now.”

Dahler shrugs himself back into standing as Deaton reaches them. The two men beside Deaton open carry on their belts, a little heavy handed in Derek’s opinion. Deaton graciously gestures to them in turn.

“Inspectors Johnson and Johnson,” Derek is in a shit ton of pain as he listens, but he’s got no idea how Deaton said it with a straight face, “hired for the safety of Mrs. Hale. I’m sure you can understand how worried we all are with the shooter still on the loose.” Derek watches over his cupped hand as the two men stand toe to toe. “One never knows when a rat might scurry out of its hole.”

Derek would have snorted if his nasal passages were still open.

“Looks like you’ve got matters covered here, Deaton. We’ll be on our way then.” Daehler hisses like a drowning rodent.

They watch him and his thugs leave the hall. Deaton claps a rough hand on Derek’s shoulder and pulls him around to look at him. He has Derek tilt his head back and the uncomfortable position is made no better by the sound of Deaton’s breathy chuckle.

“Of all places to break your nose, I have to say a hospital is a mighty fine one.” He lets Derek drop his head in time to catch the older man shaking his head, no amusement to be seen on his face. “The risk you put your mother in by moving her unassisted was irresponsible and could have been catastrophic. ER counter for you. We’ll get your mother back where she belongs.”

Thankless, not that he could expect much more, Derek makes it a few steps in the hall when a kerfuffle of sound erupts behind him, like metal hitting tile. There’s a moment of confusion.

“Ah shib,” he swears and pushes back to the room past Deaton who’s paused in confusion. 

The boy stands on the wrong end of a beta’s gun. The other Pack member is slowly rising from the ground, a hand on their head and a tray of tools scattered around them.

“Friend,” he says, but it comes out more like “Fred” and the boy looks at him like he’s lost his mind. Derek has a moment to think the kettle is calling the pot black since the kid went against two armed men with nothing but a tray of medical tools and threw it. “He’s okay, let him go,” Derek says to the beta with the gun and is somehow understood because the man holsters his weapon.

“You can leave now.” He jerks his head towards the door and winces at the harsh movement.

He doesn’t look behind him as he exits, headed back to find the nearest ice pack and glass of water he can get his hands on. With the threat dulled he wants nothing more than to get the blood out of his mouth and relearn how to breath through his nose.

“What? No thank you?” The kid falls into the hall like the room spit him out.

“Tankth” Derek mutters and rolls his shoulders.

Make the water a beer.


	2. Across the Tracks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That stranger, I miss him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I broke this into chapters mostly for readability. 
> 
> Fun fact: every POV shift/ - break I have a chapter title for because it made writing and navigating easier. Some of them make me feel clever and I'm sad I can't share all of them so I've slipped a few in.

Laura stares at the box on the desk. It was gift wrapped. An obnoxious perfectly tied golden bow of fine spun silk that didn’t hold a single crease after slipping free. Inside there’s a pack of Lucky Strikes.

One empty slot.

She closes her eyes. Golden curls and a sharp laugh and a calloused right hand lazily holding a cigarette. Sharp brown eyes and a country drawl and those hands showing her how to hold a gun. The moment passes and she tosses the box into the trash. There’s no one to see her swipe her eyes. She clears her throat several times before she dials the number she’d memorized the same time she learned the alphabet. The phone picks up halfway through the first ring.

“Find Isaac.”

Her voice doesn’t shake. It doesn’t.

 

Hours later she hears of her brother's broken nose and black eye. They’ve been allowed too much.

“This is unacceptable Laura,” Peter paces like a madman in the small cage of the office. 

Even Laura stands with the uncomfortable energy running through her veins, still unsettled by this morning's package. It’s becoming apparent she’s spent too much time worrying about where all the pieces in this game are instead of making her own moves. 

“Think of the message you’re sending. What exactly have you done so far?” Peter snarls.

Laura flinches despite herself. She was raised to be better, but she doesn’t need to hear it from him.

“Peter,” Deaton cautions. Laura sees the fire in Peter’s eyes grow and watches him turn on the man.

“My sisters brain is slowly rotting in a hospital bed. It’s been nearly a week and who’s paid for it?” He barely pauses to breathe nonetheless hear an answer before he stalks toward Laura. “What’s worse, they’ve now managed to kidnap and beat my nephew mere feet from her unprotected body.” 

He narrows his eyes when he’s stopped by the desk between them but leans over it to get right in her face, “And yet you do nothing.”

With rehearsed bravado she replies, “Kate’s been undetectable, and-”

“No ands!” Peter’s fists against the desk interrupts her and unsettles several objects on it. “You are Alpha, it’s time for you to stop pussyfooting around like a child and act like it.”

Laura looks at him like it’s the first time. She sees a man half crazed with anger and it sparks her own. This is a man not thinking of fear and she is envious. The search for Kate has gone on for days with no trace and Laura’s been too worried about overstepping to do more than send additional eyes to scout. Nothing came of it. Her mother may never wake up, Camden is dead, and Derek’s been stepped on like a doormat. She needs to do something.

War, she had said in her hasty anger. Now with no one to ask permission from she knows there is no room for fear. It is time for the war she’d promised.

“Take out their right hand.” She looks Peter in the eyes as she says it. 

His snarl slowly turns into a baring of teeth, a viscous smile. She doesn’t look to Deaton because she’s not asking an opinion. He has the intelligence not to give it. The reserved way he stands makes her press on. 

“Alexander Argent. I want him dead.”

Peter’s hand hits the table again with the weight of a sentencing gravel. 

X 

The Alpha has been in a coma for five days when a tip comes in through word of mouth, as most do. Kate Argent wants to meet. Again. No resolution has come of the proposal. The Argents know their hit on the Alpha failed and after the death of Alexander they’re now down a key member of the family, just as the Hales are. They want Kate and a Hale with one guard on neutral ground.

It’s a better opportunity than they could have dreamed for. Alan wonders what Laura will do with it. She sits at the desk with Peter lounging in a padded arm chair in front of her. Derek leans against his own chair with arms crossed like a pouting toddler. As a civilian he shouldn’t be here, a fact Alan acknowledged when he came through the door and yet no one made a motion to remove him. By the tense lines of her face Alan can tell Laura probably doubts her choice. Alan’s been holding his tongue from years of practice.

“They won't expect it from me.” Derek insists.

Alan shakes his head. Practise be damned, these children are idiots.

“Because it shouldn’t be you, Derek. Your personal rivalry with them can’t play into it. This is Pack business, it’s serious.”

“I’m serious.” Derek grits, like the petulant child he’s always been, “Their deaths are what’s best for the Pack.”

Alan closes his eyes and breathes through his nose. I know he’s your boy, he thinks to Talia, but I won’t let it stop me from smacking him. If Derek wanted to help the Pack he should’ve started with having the brains to stay gone when he left.

“Come now, it’s not like he hasn’t killed before,” Peter cuts in smoothly.

Alan watches Derek’s shoulders tense but the boy nods, “If I don’t do it another attempt will be made with less chance of success. It’s not personal, it’s business.”

Alan spares Peter a hard glance then moves it back to Derek, “This is civilian murder, Derek. Even without the officer title on Dahller’s head it will come down on you like nothing else.”

Derek bristles. “He’s been a rotten cop his whole career, I’d no more count him an officer as I would a criminal.”

“Derek is right. If we don’t take Dahler out now he’ll stay in Argent’s pocket and have to be dealt with later.” Laura tries to end the argument there.

Clearly the Hale intelligence strand skipped them all. Cora must be destined to win a Nobel prize or Fields medal to compensate.

“Your view of his career doesn’t matter, Derek. Legally he is an officer of the law. There will be a thorough investigation.” Alan tries to speak slowly to drill the message into his mind. “The outcome of which we cannot guarantee. Regardless, your civilian status will be null. The best chances of you staying out of jail and alive don’t involve you staying on the force or in this country.” He sees the consequences start to catch up with Derek. Finally he has nothing to say.

Alan takes a steadying breath and turns to Laura, “it should be Daniel.”

Peter’s bark of a laugh is a jarring reminder of his presence. “May as well give him a banner proclaiming ‘I’m here to kill you’.”

Alan opens his mouth to reply but Laura’s voice cuts through.

“Derek,” Laura says firmly with eyes only for her brother, “this is your choice.”

Alan brings a hand to his forehead to hide his grimace. Blood swells in his mouth from where he’s bitten his tongue raw. When he opens his eyes he watches as Derek grinds his jaw and his brows crease low in determination. He looks like his father.

“I choose family.”

Not for the last time Alan recognizes the Hale’s will be the death of him. 

X 

Derek has killed before. A Medal of Valor is a story everyone wants to hear but he never wants to tell. His family is aware because of Cora, the only relative he‘d mentioned anything to. She’d been too proud and young to understand why he wanted to keep it from the rest of them. Lucky for her she was also the only person he couldn’t stay angry with.

This is different. No uniform, no registered gun, no medals. He’s never killed as a civilian. He’s not a murderer. It’s no surprise they want him prepared.

“Once a location is chosen the gun will be dropped in the back reservoir of the closest stall to the exit.” There’s a lot of eye contact Derek doesn’t dare break, “You come out, don’t stop, don’t sit down. Shoot, drop the gun, and go. Understand?”

It’s the most he’s ever heard Boyd speak. He nods. Boyd makes him repeat it back. It doesn’t bother him as much as it could. This is serious. He tries not to think of how serious. He’s already been gone for four years. What’s a couple more?

“Hey,” he tries to say it before he can stop, “Thank you,” he offers his hand.

Boyd scrutinizes him and doesn’t take the offer.

“Your mother is proud of you,” the man says instead.

Derek’s mind struggles to process the words and freezes. 

“What?”

It’s more a glint of amusement in Boyd’s eyes than a smile, but it’s something. “They all are, your family. They’re proud of what you’ve done.” 

He finally takes the hand Derek had almost dropped in shock and shakes it firmly to the point of pain, smiling like there’s a secret between them. 

“This will be no different.”

 

They’re told to meet at a small restaurant on the fringe of town with barely a half hour before the set time. Derek gets there in twenty-five, having sped the whole way through traffic. From the front window he can see Kate and Dahler seated already, in plain sight of the whole restaurant. He tries not to think about whether or not the gun is planted. It would have taken twenty minutes, at least, to get from the house on the other side of town and plant it. He has faith in the Pack, but even this would have been tight. There’s no contingency plan for the gun not being there and they can’t afford to let Kate leave today thinking the merger is a go.

A train roars on a track overhead.

After a quick swipe of his palms on his jeans he pushes the door open. They sit at a circular table in the middle of the place with open sight lines of the front entrance and kitchen door. Waitresses and patrons chat amiably in the background. He repeats a mantra in his head: Breathe normally, be steady, keep going, don’t smile, don’t frown. Breathe.

A family sits at a nearby table and his eyes are drawn to the two little kids there. It’s late enough to be past their bedtime but the mother looks overworked and under slept. There’s two empty baskets with the crumbs of complimentary bread sitting on their table. They’re young enough to be playing with crayons still, fussing about favourite colours.

A back alley of a dirty city is very different from a restaurant in the suburbs.

Kate greets him with a cloud of choking perfume and a slimy lip-gloss smile. Dahler nods. Neither stand when he approaches and he sits with an unsettling scrape of his chair against the floor. He lets Kate take control of the conversation but stays vocal enough to seem interested. Innuendos and mock threats are abundant and he’s grateful for the excuse to be visibly uncomfortable. It’s not fully a show, he can still remember sitting helpless in a chair with Kate’s weight pressing into his thighs. Sometimes he wakes and wants to vomit at the memory. 

He forces down a glass of water. The family behind Dahler’s head has finally started to pack up. There are coats and mittens to pile on and Derek tries not to visibly show his relief as they walk out the door. The only patrons left are a couple he can’t see the profile of and an elderly man dining solo.

Derek has barely touched the dish in front of him but he throws his napkin on it regardless. As they’ve talked he’s finished over two glasses of water and it’s no act when he excuses himself to the washroom. He doesn’t enter the stall.

He looks at the man in the mirror and braces on the porcelain counter. Kate’s proposal will deplete the Hale resources for Argent profit and she’s wrapped it in the guise of being a peace treaty. Laura’s told him the facts. They’ve already declared war, they’ve gotten too close to taking out their leader and if Derek doesn’t agree to this both families will be caught in a blood bath too evenly powered to be short. On the other hand, taking out Kate who sits as the new right hand and their main police influence would swing the tide in Hale favour, an unseen first blow capable of giving his family the upper hand back and minimize the damage.

It all rides on the gun being in the reservoir of the toilet.

Derek pisses and walks to the table. He’s stopped short by the sight of the family who should have been gone. One of the kids has forgotten something, they’re searching underneath the table and climbing in the seats. Derek looks back to Kate and Dahler and keeps moving. They’ve already seen him.

He sits in the tacky vinyl chair and waits. The plates have been cleared and Kate starts to look tense and agitated as his answers remain non-committal. The little boy has almost found his hat Derek can clearly see is jammed in the footwell of the table. Derek wants nothing more than to pull it out and give it to him.

“Derek honey, don’t play coy. We need an answer before we leave the table.” 

The boy’s sister has gone to help him, they both fumble and giggle under the table and the mother's tired face is close to smiling. Outside a train thunders on the rails. 

“Derek,” Kate hisses.

Derek’s been watching the kids for too long, Kate turns to see what he’s looking at and Dahler’s hand moves under the table.

POP

POP

The gun clatters onto the table and he marches towards the door, pulling on the ball cap and sunglasses tucked into his waistband. He pockets his gloved hand and shoves the door with his shoulder. The train and it’s noise has passed. The door closes on the sound of the kids crying in fear and the mother frantically trying to calm them down.

He disappears into a car with no plates waiting for him by the dumpsters of the side alley. The smell of pasta has never made him nauseous before but he doubts he’ll ever eat it again without thinking of this moment.

Derek will hibernate in Oregon. Mrs. Martin, the Deputy Chief of Police, will bury the case before it gets too far. The old man and the couple had been on the payroll to testify as witnesses for an act of self defense for a nameless victim should it get so far. Mr. Whittemore will plead his case, of course. 

X 

“Leave us.” The room is silenced by her words.

Talia Hale never panics. She is methodical, rational, controlled. She can list her weak points and feels the knowledge allows her a certain power over them. On this, she’ll admit, she may be wrong.

Her brother looks out the window, his tense shoulders the only sign he’s heard her. Alan keeps his gaze steady on Laura as he leaves the room. When Peter has found something witty enough to say he turns to exit as though on his own time.

“Someone’s been naughty,” he smirks shallowly without meeting her eyes as he passes. The door closes softly behind him.

“Where is my son?” She demands.

Laura clears her throat and stands from the chair behind the desk. Slowly she raises her chin to meet Talia’s piercing glare. She’s had both dreams and nightmares about the sight of her daughter in this office. Never once did they include this conversation.

“He left for Oregon last week, under my authority.” Laura has her hands braced on the cleared surface of the desktop before her.

“And was it under your authority my child committed murder?” Talia seethes and marches forward into the room. The carpet is still too soft and it sinks under the cane.

“He’s hardly a child, mother. He made his own choice.”

Talia doesn’t stop the scoff leaving her lips at the word. What a thing to say. Earlier today she’d been discharged and the blood rushes through in a dizzying way she’s still acclimating to. Stay calm, they’d told her at the hospital doors, don’t do anything to excite yourself. She can feel the blood pumping in her temples.

“No, Laura,” Her voice is raised in a way she rarely uses with her children, “You are responsible. His actions are on you,” she points her finger to accentuate her point, “Choices do not exist.” 

There’s a moment as the words echo around the room. Laura looks stricken, and it is a jarring reminder Talia is losing her.

“Dad didn't kill himself because of you,” Laura says like she knows anything, like it has any relevance here. It’s a tidal wave and it knocks the breath out of Talia’s lungs, leaving her clenching the top of the polished cane at her side. “Is that what you think?” Laura presses when Talia remains struck silent by the absurdity of her daughter's words.

“I will not have this discussion with you, Laura.” She says firmly, raising her chin. 

Laura’s brows crease in a way Talia has seen herself do in the mirror. They stand on either side of the desk and Talia can feel her energy draining.

“You are the reason Derek left,” Laura changes tactics smoothly. 

She’s cunning, her girl. Especially since it works to shift the conversation. The truth isn’t something Talia is unfamiliar with. She may have hit her head but she can still remember the look Derek gave her before he left. His last words to her had been piercing. She doesn’t regret it, she tells herself. She can’t.

“If I’d let him join the NYPD where do you think he’d be?” She asks Laura earnestly, unable to stop her voice from raising to hide the tremor of it. “Who do you think would have paid off a junkie to stab a cop first, Argent? Deucalion? Kali?” 

She is tired of this argument before it’s barely started. She’s had it before, with Derek, with herself. If she’d let Derek stay he’d be dead. End of story.

Laura doesn’t reply, her silence like the backdraw of a wave Talia can feel pulling her further and further away. Inevitably they will crash again. And again. Before she is at once lost to the currents of a life Talia prays she has prepared her enough for.

“Where is he now?” She asks not only to her daughter but to the room in general. There is a thin line of eye contact stretched between them like a tightrope they’re both balancing on. “You let him choose and I’ve lost him again.” She says before Laura can reply and it feels like falling.

She’s surprised by the wetness of her own eyes. Laura’s looking at her like Derek did four years ago. Like a stranger. A sorrowful apology runs through her being as she looks back at the woman standing behind the desk. I’m sorry one day you will understand.

Laura is pulled in on herself, her eyes downcast, but her voice is level when she says, “You’re not the only one who misses him.”

Neither clarify who they’re talking about. 

X 

Derek lands in Oregon. A woman named Morel is sitting in the car waiting for him, an associate of Deaton’s who’s offered solace. Her name is on the house, the cars, the credit cards. If asked they’d say she was a scholarship sponsor. He feels certain he won’t see her again when she drops them off at the house.

Boyd is the only familiar face in the foreign state, one of two bodyguards assigned to keep him out of sight and out of trouble, and he helps load the bags into the place. Derek has a sloppy half a duffle. Boyd’s luggage is stuffed to the seams. The stairs are sturdy under his feet and lead to a row of bedrooms. Each one looks as nondescript as the last. He walks past the master and ensuite to take the last room squished at the end of the hall. The window frames thick green foliage. It faces the forest bordering the backyard of the house, trees taller than he’s ever seen and shrubs too dense to walk through, it feels like a fence caging him in. His bag lands in a slump on the faded duvet cover of the bed. He sits next to it and falls to his back with a thud.

Braeden. No doubt she’d have a few choice words to say if he ever saw her again. The last time he’d seen her was the day after Cora’s party, when he’d dropped her at the airport. He’d promised to call when he joined her back home, which he’d put off week after week. Making a call now is impossible, least of all because her number was saved on a phone he’s pretty sure doesn’t exist anymore. He squeezes his eyes shut and groans. Fuck.

Derek is used to being independent in LA. He’s used to the sunshine and its accompanying heat on his skin. The rush of city life and stifling concrete-melting air. He has workout routines and buddies he hangs out with and favourite restaurants they frequent. He’s built a life around the phrase “those Hale’s? No relation.”

A resignation letter probably sits on his commanding officers desk as he lays on the bed. Everything in his apartment has been packed by strangers and moved into storage. A new phone with two numbers on it and no internet access sits on the bedside table, Boyd told him not to customize the settings in any way. Nothing of the life he built in L.A. existed.

The house is fine. There is room enough for the three of them to spread out in a way he’d consider comfortable if he were a college student with roommates. With a few years as an officer and his own apartment under his belt it feels restrictive and unnecessary. Confined.

Constant drizzling rain sours his mood most days, especially when he can’t do something as simple as running to the store for milk without using the buddy system. He snaps more than once and feels like a child having a tantrum when Boyd raises his eyebrow. Jennifer finds it amusing by the sly grin he gets from her, but she starts to keep her distance and he’s silently thankful for the space. It takes time before he can look at either companion without feeling resentment.

This time he made the choice.

He did it to keep Cora safe like he didn’t last time. He did it to keep Laura from doing it herself like he knew she wanted to. He did it because he fucking hates Kate Argent.

It’s grimly ironic. For four years he’s wanted nothing to do with his family. Now he’s chosen them and he’s more isolated than ever.

A week into his isolation he once more lays on the bed, his bed. Between calloused fingers he flips the new driver's license over one more time and attempts to get the accent right when he mutters the name.

It reads Derek Gajos.

X 

Laura leaves her mother’s office with a soft click of the door. Her destination is less a place and more ‘away’ from whatever feelings are tangling in her. Meetings with her mother have become short and tense, at odds with the relief she feels about her mother still breathing.

At the door to the garden she barely notices Cora but for the quick flash of fluffy pink flannel pants. Her sister is leaning against a pillar on the patio, doing nothing but watching the rain fall. In bare feet and pyjamas. They’ve all kept a close eye on her since the event of her kidnapping. Laura wonders if she should have been looking closer.

“Cora,” she announces as she steps outside and comes behind her. 

Standing in the cold rain with only a tank top on is ridiculous, and Laura is about to tell her sister so, but stops short when she sees the look on her face. Cora’s mascara is running while the rest of her is dry. 

“What’s happened?”

Cora avoids her look but can’t stop the sniffling before Laura gets close enough to put a comforting hand on her.

“Peter,” Cora starts. In a familiar way she huffs and crosses her arms, defensive and so small. Laura’s heart aches with the need to comfort her. “I thought he was okay.” Cora continues and her stiff shoulders hunch, “I mean, he seemed happy at the party and he was there for me when mom- and I-“ her voice fails her and she clears her throat to continue. “I just wanted to see him.”

Her shoulders are at her ears and tears run to her chin. Laura steps closer and runs her hands on her arms. It does nothing to console her sister and her body starts shaking either from the cold or the memory. Laura waits for Cora to continue.

“It was on his desk and he just… he just did it,” her eyes bore into Laura’s, begging her to understand. “It was right there, how could he… ?” A catch in her breath stops her. “I just needed some air.” She smiles weakly.

The information takes a moment to connect together. He wouldn’t, Laura wants to say. Peter held Laura’s hand at her father’s funeral. He was livid when they found Cora in a drug den. Laura clings to the threads of anger the argument with her mother started and weaves it with this new revelation. It builds a blanket of rage and smothers all else.

The people around her are meant to be adults. They should be capable of making decisions based on the years of experience and wisdom, not continually failing their family.

She pushes Cora away rougher than she should and starts her warpath. His office is empty. So is his room. His car is still parked in the garage, but his bike isn’t. She stares at its empty parking space and closes her eyes. Anger builds until it is no longer an emotion felt and more like a state of being. Her breath is held in a yell only heard in the darkness behind her eyelids.

She follows her steps back to the second floor bedrooms and knocks softly on Cora’s.

“Bunny, can I come in?”

She opens the door without an answer and joins her youngest sibling on the bed. This is where she’s needed.

 

She hunts Peter before breakfast has been served. He’s exiting his office in a fresh suit, humming a tune as he straightens his tie. Laura turns around the corner so she is out of sight and waits. A pair of footsteps head towards her. He goes easily when she body checks him against the wall, surprised at the tackle.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” She hisses.

“I’ve no idea,” He offers and tries to leverage himself out of her grasp.

He isn’t expecting the force she recounts to slam him back. His head dents the drywall and his jaw snaps at the impact.

“Cora saw you, you bastard.” His eyes turn stony at her words but it makes no impact on the rage cultivating beneath her skin. “Did you think you could hide it like he did?” She breathes into his face as she uses her own body to keep him in place.

The mask slides over his face and is the evidence she needs to be certain. It hurts to be sure. Family was supposed to mean something.

Peter tsks, “I think you’re taking this a bit too far-“

The biting sting of her palm from the slap she gives doesn’t feel like enough. She wishes she could tear him apart bit by bit with bloody nails and break her fingers caving in his skull. Instead she takes a shaky breath and steps back. She straightens her outfit while he touches his split lip lightly and stares at the spot of blood on his fingertips.

“Get clean. If Cora sees it again I won’t hesitate to kill you myself.”

They lock eyes in a moment of brutal honesty. She’s gone with a forceful turn, walking down the hall without looking back. If she stayed she couldn’t predict what his smug voice would lead her to do. 

X 

After months of biting comments and sharp comebacks and buckets of frustration they manage to relax into a pattern. Derek spends his mornings with Jennifer making smoothies, lifting at the gym, or jogging through the trails. His evenings he spends with Boyd. Usually indoors. Usually with food or television or both. It’s easier when it’s just one of them, yet Derek can’t help the envy creeping up the back of his neck every time they switch off and get to be on their own.

It’s not his ideal way to live. A piece of music wanders into his head and he wishes he could call Cora to ask the name of it. He sees a business woman in a cafe and wonders how Laura takes her coffee now. After one disastrous take-out order they learn to avoid anything to do with italian food.

With longer summer days they start adventuring into town. They’re close enough to a college it’s easy enough to blend in with the students. Locals are friendly but not nosy, recognizing faces but barely names. Despite not being the rush of a city it’s bearable. Derek begins to enjoy the sound of rain against his window.

 

Boyd takes him out to the local pub in an effort to find new scenery. Soon they’re going every other night, if only so they don’t have dishes to do after dinner. Despite how Boyd never touches anything but water and Derek hardly drinks more than one beer they find themselves increasingly in the presence of Erica, the bartender. He’s got a feeling it’s more to do with Boyd’s smile than the tip they give her.

On a memorable night Derek’s somewhat more than buzzed and fumbling with his fly in a freezing alleyway. Boyd is waiting at the entrance of it, having told him like a parent to pee before he got in the car and Derek had been too drunk to think of going back inside. He's surprised when the back door of the pub is thrown open with a bang and a woman steps out with a trash bag. He jams his hands into his pockets and tries to look inconspicuous when she casts a weary eye at him, but the thought of release has made him desperate to go and his fingers are too thick with drink to properly work his fly.

“Hey can I uh, can I ask a favour?” He says just as she’s about to disappear through the door again. Even in his drunken state he can’t believe what he’s about to ask.

“I’m not touching your dick.” She says bluntly and Derek is mortified when he realizes what it must look like.

“Oh fuck no, sorry. I just need a pair of scissors.” He’s quick to fumble.

She hovers with a hand on the weighted door to keep it open, her glare suspicious, “scissors?”

Derek knows he’s drunk, but he doesn’t realize how drunk until the words are coming out of his mouth.

“I gotta cut my pants off or I’ll piss in them. Please, I’m desperate,” and by this point he really is. 

Every muscle is clenched in effort to keep from making a bigger fool of himself. The girl bursts out laughing and the door slams behind her. Derek’s hands automatically go to his crotch as he swears both in embarrassment and distress.

The door bangs open before he’s made a move and a pair of scissors appear before him.

“I won’t stay to watch,” she says, still smiling and the door swings shut.

Boyd gives him a high raised eyebrow when he timidly hobbles out of the alley holding the pieces of his jeans together.

 

The next week he sheepishly returns the scissors to Erica. Sanitized, he swears. Erica cackles and pulls the woman out of the back for Derek to introduce himself properly. And soberly. He apologizes for his behaviour but the woman insists her delicate sensibilities have put up with much worse. Her name is Paige and Derek is enamoured quickly.

Derek convinces Boyd to ask Erica out, and by convincingly it’s more like he asks her out for him, so they can double date. After imposing rules which make Derek feel like he’s ten years younger and negotiating with a babysitter they finally have a plan.

They go bowling. In a show of red lipstick and perfect aim the women hand their asses to them. The hardest drink is a ginger ale older than he is and the alley is empty but for their group and a seven year olds pizza party on the other end of the hall. It’s the tamest first date Derek has ever had and it’s perfect.

Paige is all snark and pushes back twice as hard as she gets. She’s messy buns and baggy t-shirts and brutal honesty. In the cocoon of the small Oregon town where he’s nothing more than a kid with a dead end bachelor-degree Derek begins to lose himself. 

X 

Peter opens the office door while Jackson fusses with his shirt collar in front of the mirror on the mantle.

“You realize how much these cost, yes?” He asks the older man with his crumpled silk tie in hand.

“You realize how much we pay you, yes?” Peter parrots, his tone light rather than cruel.

Jackson keeps his face turned away when he rolls his eyes. Really, it’s the principle. There’s no hope for the Italian piece until a steamer can be found, though Jackson tries his best to weave it back into shape just the same.

He’s stalling. After hours of isolation in this room there’s no great rush to leave it’s walls. Comforting is not the right word, far from it in fact, but they are familiar which is rare enough. A great deal of him is sore with aches which will worsen before they fade. Sentimentality was something for chicks so he’d never say it out loud, but he’ll miss the marks when they leave his skin. He pulls the tie tight around his neck for a flash second to savour the feeling of it. There are places still smarting under his clothes.

Peter is leaning on the doorframe and Jackson gets the feeling of being watched. If they were something more, something real, Jackson would say it now or maybe even meet his eyes and hope he saw it there. But that’s not what this is. He yanks the tie loose and shoves it into a pocket, undoing the top two buttons of his shirt to breathe easier.

Peter straightens to step out and Jackson follows.

He’s barely made it to the doorway when he hears a voice ring out, “Peter?”

It’s too late to duck back into the office by the time he’s fully registered the speaker. There’s Laura, standing in the hallway of a house Peter had sworn was empty. A blank stare is a rare expression for a valedictorian alumni and Jackson relishe’s the look of it on her, despite the situation.

“And Jax?” In a mirror of Alpha's anger she dimples her brow when she catches sight of him.

Peter is stiff. Jackson wouldn’t be worried if he couldn’t feel the throbbing of deep bruises blooming on his neck. There's a wool coat and scarf of his hanging in the front foyer meant to cover them perfectly. Now, standing in the hallway, the marks practically burn under Laura’s gaze.

“Laura,” Peter says calmly. His movements are rigid as he reaches past Jackson to widen the office door, “Why don’t you come and talk?” 

The careful space he keeps between them is not lost on Jackson when Peter motions inside. Ever a bitch about things Laura doesn’t take the invitation. She widens her stance to ground herself like she’s going to throw down with Peter right here in the hall. Jackson recognizes it from the first and only time he’d hit Lydia. It’s the look of Laura Hale on the brink of murder.

“Did you think about Derek’s case if his marriage falls apart?” She demands. 

Jackson can’t help his scoff. Lydia leaving him? Over Peter? Un-fucking-likely.

“You know nothing, Laura,” Jackson drawls. 

Lydia knows the score, he doesn’t need the puppy princess judging him for it when his fiancé could give two shits. A hand on his shoulder stops him from pushing past Peter.

There is a thinned patience in Peter’s voice when he speaks, “Their marriage will be fine.”

“Do you think Alpha will see it that way?” Neither of them can respond before Laura continues with an edge of hysteris to her voice, “What is it with you and fucking the wrong men?”

The accusation is a shock to Jackson, though maybe not as surprising as it could be. Peter isn’t the only man he’s sleeping with afterall, a fact he knows Peter is aware of. It’s more than likely Peter has someone else on the side. Jackson’s never asked, never cared past the certainty of a clean health check.

He casts a look at Peter. The relaxed smirk he held moments ago is nowhere to be seen. It’s replaced by the dark shuttered look of a wild animal pacing behind bars. Jackson hates Laura. Not for angering Peter, but for the rare bliss of afterglow she’s thoroughly destroyed for Jackson.

“You can’t go stressing her so soon after her trauma, Laura.” Peter bites out.

“Yet.” She says and moves into Peter’s space so she’s nearly spitting in his face like a rabid dog. “The last Alpha took away your inheritance. What do you think this one will do when she discovers you didn’t learn your lesson?”

She steps back when she finishes. It has revealed more to Jackson than he’s ever minded to care for. Peter should be ruling, An obvious fact to anyone who could count the years between his and the Alpha’s birthdays. Why he wasn’t was of no concern to Jackson. The fact it had to do with a bit on the side does amuse him. He’s thought for a while he might be a replacement for someone else, it’s gratifying to confirm it was, at the very least, a man.

“Congratulations Jackson, ” her address pulls him from the musings of Peters sex life, “you’re just as disgusting as he is.” 

She scowls and flounces away like the drama queen she’s always been. When she’s out of sight Peter pulls his office door closed softly behind Jackson.

“Will that cause any trouble?” He asks Peter not with Lydia in mind.

Laura's welcome to go spilling her rumours and half truths to his fiancé, but there’s more than just Derek riding on their marriage. It wouldn’t do to have a scandal break out if the wrong person caught the wrong gossip.

“No,” Peter says firmly. “I’ll handle it.”

X 

Less than an hour after his confrontation with Laura, Peter dials a number he hasn’t used since he was a different man.

“Argent,” a gravelly voice answers reluctantly after a pause. It makes Peter smirk. The man recognizes the number, no doubt.

“This is how you greet an old friend?”

“You are far from a friend of mine.” The man replies. It’s both the truth and a lie.

“Oh Christopher, you wound me.” He says in mock huff.

Chris snorts into the phone, “It’s the least I can do.”

“I’d like to do something for you.” Peter hums. There’s a moment of dead air.

“What will it cost me?”

“Nothing. The outcome will be mutually rewarding.” Peter’s smile is tight and his eyes are blank.

X 

There’s a tree in the entrance way. It’s a behemoth and truly way too early to be anything but an eyesore at this point. Cora glares at it when she passes. The holidays can suck her dick.

Summer had been easy to pass with the distraction of friends and vacations to the beach. School started and kept her busy for awhile, but now it’s been months and she’s losing interest. Derek’s gone. Again. This time it’s different.

She hasn’t been allowed to speak to him once. Laura’s busy stepping in for mom when her leg acts up. The last time Cora went driving with Boyd seems like years ago, and to think of it she hasn’t really seen him around either. She’s been avoiding Peter like the plague.

Five people knew the exact events of the seven weeks she’d skipped freshman year. Two days spent on vacation, nine spent in a drugged haze in the hands of traffickers. When she came home she was an addict and her father was dead. Fewer people knew she’d relapsed twice since. Peter is one of those people, and yet.

He was using. There was cocaine in the house and the knowledge of it was tormenting. She’d done rehab, she still visited a therapist regularly, but it’s hard. Knowing.

And now she has to see him because of the douchebag Jackson, who’d ran out of here while shoving a package into her hands with a short ‘for Peter.’ She was tempted to leave the thing outside his door or throw it out the window, maybe run it over with her car a few times. She was angry at Peter for whatever stupid game he was playing, angry at Jackson for being a turd this morning, angry at her mother and Laura for never being around to talk about it, and angry at Derek for disappearing when he’d promised to be here for Christmas.

She barges into Peter’s office full of righteous fire. 

“Please remind Jackson I’m not an errand boy.” She says.

His head snaps quickly to her from whatever he was looking at and his mouth is tight when he says, “I’ll be sure to mention it.”

His hand runs across the desk as she crosses the room. She doesn’t see it until she’s placing the package on his desk. It's less than a smear, more of a whisper of a trace on the hard leather writing pad. It’s enough to make her skin crawl. The package drops from her shaky hand with no notice and her feet fumble over themselves when she backs away from the desk.

The journey is a blurred one until she’s choking on fresh air with the cool tiles of the patio beneath her feet. In the clarity of the backyard new anger builds. Anger at herself. No matter how she squeezes her eyes and shakes her head she can’t get the sight of it out of her head. She can’t stop wondering if he has anymore, where it might be, how she might-

She calls Laura.

“Did you talk with Peter?” She speaks before Laura says hello.

“What’s wrong?” Laura asks instead of answering.

Cora shakes her head with no one to see it. She doesn’t want to say, doesn’t want to think about it anymore.

“I don’t think he listened if you did.” She says. “He had some, on his desk, and I -“ her mind stutters over what could be an admission if she let it be, but she knows she’s weak and she doesn’t want anyone else to realize the extent of it. They baby her enough already. “I think he has more.”

She can hear marching footsteps echoing on the other end of the line. “I’ll be there soon.” 

X 

L.A. is out of reach. The east coast holds nothing for him. Thinking of either gets no easier with each passing day. Jennifer has upped their training schedule and with the occasional addition of the two girls they play relay games and race in the dry shelter of the community centre. Their competitive banter bounces off of the walls when they tackle one another in victory.

It’s a treat to watch Boyd and Erica grow close alongside his romance with Paige. Not being the only one sprouting roots makes it feel real, like everything else before or after this will be the dream, not the other way around. Jennifer fits in with unshakable confidence, easily joking and becoming close with all of them. The forest which once caged him now seems freeing when they hike through it in the crisp morning air. He soaks in the bright sound of Erica’s laughter when they visit the frigid ocean, he blankets himself in the wood-fire warmth under starry nights with shared sleeping bags. The comradery is different from the obligatory one he felt on the force or the strained bond of his family. This feels like freedom and choice and love. He spends days breathing in the scent of Paige and becoming familiar with the taste of her. It feels like perfection.

The worst part of a dream is waking up. 

X 

Alan Deaton has been the messenger of bad news.

Your youngest child has gone missing.

Your husband has committed suicide.

Your only son is a murderer.

He stares at the solid wood door inches from his face. There are no answers to be found on its dark chestnut finish, it simply sits impassively between him and fate. In moments he will shake hands with its familiar brass handle and greet his Alpha as he always has. He will tell her, as he always does, the truth.

Laura Hale is dead. 

X 

Fall winds breeze by. Winter arrives and with it the cold hand of reality. They’ve been careless in their joy. Too happy, too loud, too noticeable in a small town. A call comes from Talia a week after Thanksgiving.

“You’ve been made. A car will arrive in two hours. Leave nothing behind.” The line goes dead.

It’s the most communication he’s had with his family since landing on this side of the country and it lasts less than a minute. Talia’s words ring in his head. His eyes are wide open now, the circumstances of his situation slamming him back into reality. This time he can’t leave anything behind.

Boyd drives him to Paige’s apartment. With more awareness than the first time he met her he allows himself to sound half crazy by getting on one knee and holding one of Erica’s cheap rings she’d left in Boyd’s car. Somehow she agrees.

“You never were normal.” She says with a smile and relief swells. He won’t have to give this up. His hands are relearning the feel of her when Boyd interrupts ten minutes later to drag them off of each other.

“It can wait for the honeymoon, now we have to go.” He says, but he gives Derek a high five on the way to the car. They get back to the house and Derek throws everything he’s collected in the months he’d been living as Derek Gajos. The duffle he brought is now overflowing and he resorts to throwing things in shopping bags. Boyd pops his head in the bedroom doorway.

“Have you heard from Jen?”

Derek shrugs distractedly, “not since this morning.”

Paige waltzes into his room just as he’s finishing and hugs him from behind. 

“I’ll take the first load and wait for you in the car,” he turns in her arms as she speaks.

“You are perfect, have I told you yet?” He murmurs into her neck. 

She tilts her head and pretends to think about it. He kisses her cheek and she breaks into laughter before kissing him proper.

“Truth or dare?” She asks, gathering her breath and shrugging a few bags onto her shoulders.

“Truth,” he says against her skin. She hums and spins out of his arms.

“I’ll ask you in the car,” She teases and flips her raincoat hood onto her head in a way that covers her face before she’s out the door.

He shoves the last handful of shirts from his dresser into the bag in his hands and hops down the stairs. The craziness of what he’s done, of what they’re going to do, keeps the smile firmly in place. He’s going to get married. To Paige. The thought of it is so ridiculous and fantastic a burst of laughter pushes at his lips while he heads through the house for the last time.

He’s three steps from the door when the bomb goes off.

Every bag in his arms drops to the floor. He pushes himself onto the porch and keeps going past the warm wave of pressure that hits him deep in his chest. The car is engulfed in flames. He’s seen it before. Impersonal tragedy on the side of the highway, the distortion heat causes in the air, but that’s in a city too dry to have any business being here in the rain.

This is personal. This is real. It’s his worst nightmare dropped in the middle of a dream.

He sprints halfway to the car before he’s tackled and slams into the ground. Distantly he can tell it’s Boyd keeping him down. There’s gravel digging into his face and rain bleeding into his eyes but none of it matters. All he can see are the flames reflecting on the wet ground and the hollow frame of the car. His chest feels like it’s collapsing and exploding at the same time. He yells and fights and slams his fists into the ground until they are bloody scraps of flesh and bone. None of it can be heard over the roar of the flames.

 

They fly him to a small town in the middle of the night and he doesn’t leave the house. The more you gain the more you have to lose, so he remains empty. Boyd watches over him like a ghost. Winter passes.

Jennifer never returns. 

X 

Traffic Crash Report

Date of Crash 26/11/10  
Time Officer Notified 20:03 EST  
County EC  
Time of Crash 16:32 EST  
Time Officer Arrived 20:21 EST

Reporting Officer Deputy Jones

Year 2010  
Vehicle Travelling East  
Driver HALE, LAURA  
Make Chevrolet Camaro  
Estimated MPH 86  
Injury Severity Deceased  
State NY  
Posted Speed 30

Secondary Vehicle Not Present

x

Coroner's Report - Onsite

Into the death of  
HALE, LAURA

Injury sustained (at a glance)

crushing of the left side humerus, radius, ulna, carpus, metacarpus.  
Fractures to the left side clavicle, scapula, tibia, acetabulum.

crushing of left side arm and leg, fractures to hip and collar area.  
11 ribs fractured, minimum 2 broken. Lungs pierced and subsequent collapse/flooding.  
4 skull fractures followed by possible internal swelling of the brain.  
Hyperextension of neck, spinal disc slip most likely COD upon impact

More to follow post-autopsy

x

Investigation Report  
Case #010147858  
Reporting Officer: Deputy Jones  
Incident Type: Traffic Crash

Evidence:  
Paint transfer from secondary vehicle inconclusive - no match in database  
Tyre tracks of secondary vehicle raked over, intention most likely  
No witnesses

Last known contact:  
Cora Hale, sister of Deceased  
Phone call was estimated twelve minutes before the crash. Informed of Hale’s emotional state, conversation consisted of asking Hale to return home due to personal emergency (“female things”) consistent with Hale’s excessive speeding. Tight lipped about possible enemies of victim (damn Hales, not a surprise)

Interviewee displayed signs of grief, including aggression and irritability. No involvement with foul play suspected.

x

Laura Hale stormed out of the meeting she’d been attending after a phone call with her sister. Her car ripped out of the parking lot with a squealing on the pavement and a roaring engine. The quickest route to the house was through the back roads. There she could drive without worry of witnesses to her erratic speed.

The last thing she saw were headlights flashing across the steering column. Her head impacted the driver side door and was fractured in four places. Her neck snapped and broke in the whiplash. The driver side door imploded, crushing her left arm and leg in a shining mess of bloody metal and fiberglass. Her lungs were pierced by broken ribs and started to flood. Her right wrist slammed against the dash and her collarbone fractured under the seat belt as she was suspended upside down. Glass from the broken windows split through her skin like paper. She was dead before the car finished flipping off the road.

X 

Alpha Hale’s stride is confident, slowed only by necessity rather than lack of confidence. The ugly scar of the accident is hidden out of sight by her trim suit. If a twinge of pain echoes through her leg at the memory, she is the only one to know. There is a shadow looming over her shoulder she has trained herself to stop turning towards. From the corner of her eye it looks like Claudia. It looks like she’s saying ‘I told you so.’

A nameless driver shuts the tinted door behind her. The pads of her fingertips brace her aching forehead. Her stomach rolls at the thought of what she’s done. Tomorrow the Pack will prepare to assist the Argents, what’s left of them, with their narcotics trade. In turn her son will return without a target on his back.

She knows of the girl of course. A tragedy, she understands, but he can’t be allowed to wallow any longer. It’s time he comes home. The ache in her head persists until tears spring to her eyes. With them follows a surprising anger.

I’m not ready William. Don’t take me yet.

 

The solid slab of wood that makes the face of the desktop is worn in places from her habits of nearly three decades. A faded patch where she rests her right hand and unconsciously rubs it with her thumb, the small imprints sleeve buttons have left every time she’s dropped or dragged her cuffs, and small gouges from fingernails dug into the underside lip from every time it’s been lifted. She sits in a stuffed leather visitor chair and stares at it’s dull stain polish. A doomed throne. Laura sat there for a total of twenty seven days while she was out of commission in recovery.

Derek stands beside it now, his body turned away from her. The muscles of his back flex and tense under his shirt when he hugs his crossed arms tighter. She watches every shuddering breath he takes and marvels at the deja vu.

“There’s no way to know when,” she speaks, unsure if she’s talking to her son or the ghost of his father. Neither of them make a move or sound, like statues in a museum frozen in a moment for eternity.

“You’re a smart man, Derek. I expect you to understand we are out of options.” 

His knuckles whiten where they grasp his biceps, but still he makes no sound. It’s infuriating. Four years of silence sits between them. 

“I need to know you’re prepared.” She states harshly, matter of fact, and it pulls the trigger.

Throwing his weight Derek lurches away from the desk and paces. A hand rakes through his hair and continues to palm the back of his neck. It’s a habit he formed as a teenager. Back when he was shy he’d bring his hand to the back of his neck when talking about a girl he liked or a test he didn’t do well on. She wishes she didn’t know when he stopped talking with her so openly, but she does.

She watches as his eyes vacantly scan the room like an animal looking for a way out of a cage. He pauses on the empty chair behind the desk and his body goes taught like he’s reached the end of a line. Both hands clasped behind his head and he pushes himself into a crouch. Head down, elbows on his knees, weight braced on his toes. She can’t see his face.

A guttural groan that turns into a shout rumbles through him and echoes off the four walls. It’s pain and anger with nowhere to go. She is a spectator to the destruction of his past and future. His breaking point.

The world is an ironic bitch. We try and we try and we try, but there’s no escaping fate. Peter raised the golden boy expecting to take the mantle, but at twenty two with a toddler at home and a baby in her belly Talia had read the unofficial Will of her father and seen her name where her older brothers should have been. Laura was primed to take over, but at twenty two Derek had learned of her death through a headline in a newspaper. Peter and Laura had never expected anything else. The real kick to the teeth is Talia and Derek had never envied them for it.

She watches as he pants and struggles to catch his breath. Slowly unfolding himself limb by shaky limb he stands and takes time to straighten himself fully. He wipes a hand over his face for the sweat and tears collected there. He’s beautiful. She looks at him with a scrutiny she hasn’t been able to since he was here and safe and hers.

She is in awe of the man before her. Her baby boy has become this human being, still as magnificent with the whole world on his shoulders as when he fit in her hands.

The grinding set of his jaw, the tense line of his shoulders, the thrumming power coiled in the muscles. The shuttered look in his eyes. Within minutes his whole world has fallen apart and crushed him with the nightmare he’s been running from. Left behind is the shine of a diamond.

He stands beside her with a hard gaze locked on the chair that will be his.

“What do I do?”

 

X —- end part one —- X

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh I'm sorry but I really didn't like writing in Cora's back story or really anything to do with her. It was hard to think of a cover for the abusive relationship I didn't want to include from The Godfather movie (this story has enough of those as it is, thank you) so I thought 'what if I used the movie TAKEN and used it as the back story??' I thought that would be cool but it's actually the worst thing. I'm not a fan of how it turned out but at this point I'm too deep in. 
> 
> Did I mention this was a slow burn?


	3. Mr. President

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Change is afoot for the Hale Pack as a power shift brings consequences for everyone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Don't miss that timeline, this is 
> 
> TWO YEARS LATER

2012

Somber clouds swell with the threat of rain, waiting for nightfall to release their terror on the world. No moon will shine tonight. A muscle near Alan’s shoulder pulses in a dull ache no matter how he tries to roll it out. With a shake of his limbs he gives up and turns to the empty room.

“There is an issue, I understand, but it’s no more troubling than a fly-”

“Twelve girls within three months is more than buzzing where I’m standing.”

Alan presses his eyes together and his chin drops to his chest. This conversation has been moving in circles for too long.

“Promises are not mine to make, yet I will say the future may leave an opening in the East Coast area, if you’re patient.” He says with a stiff jaw. 

Rafael is one of the first associates to know and like wildfire word will spread now that he does. Alan doesn’t agree with the move. Hale’s belong to the east. The mention of it only serves to sour his mood further. Imagination was not required to understand why no one was eager to deal with the Fed when talking to him was like talking to a parrot, the same words repeated over and over, nor was it a mystery why he agreed for Alan to be his sole link to the Pack. Civillity was often bred from necessity.

A dissatisfied hum is the only response, but it shuts the man up about Deucalion. In the gap of silence Alan would assume any other person had hung up, but he knows this man. Posturing even while on the phone.

“How is he?”

Alan’s eyes are still closed. Behind his lids he can see the boy earlier that day. Smiling. Learning about the optometrical issues of senile felines. Flirting with people he should not. Sinking himself into a hole when he has no rope to pull himself out of it.

“Breathing.” Alan answers bluntly and it does the trick, dial tone the only response.

He occupies himself with the retinal scans left on his desk. The news was unfortunate, but not surprising. A cataract. Blind within the year.

His time used to be spent calculating the ramifications of a mayor's untimely death. Now he sits in a veterinary clinic with his name embossed in gold on the office door. For the first seventeen years of the business he’d made a few scattered appearances on shift to keep an eye open and not much more since signing the property papers. During those years the majority of his time spent in this building had been after closing hours trying to stop human patients from bleeding out in the back room.

In the past two years he’s barely left. More to fill the time than a need for finances. It’s also been refreshing to put a degree he’d spent a near a decade of his younger years on to proper use.

A crash and yowl are quickly followed by the echoes of foul language, the other reason he’d become full time at the clinic. Alan sighs and drops the file onto his desk. Habitually he folds his glasses neatly with a click and stands to wrap his coat around himself.

“Good luck with Ms. Tabitha,” he calls while walking towards the backroom, “don’t forget to do the litter tonight, there’s a house call you’ll be accompanying me on tomorrow.” He says once he’s reached the doorway and pops his head in.

He receives a quick and enthusiastic good night from under a mop of curly hair. A flash of colour catches Alan's eye. With a slow hand he grabs it and leaves, unnoticed by his now bleeding assistant trying to handle a large tabby twitching its tail.

The world has turned pitch black by the time he arrives at the house. Rain soaks his shoulders while he clicks the lock open with a key worn smooth where his thumb settles against its face. The hall is a dark cavern he navigates with ease until he stands in front of two slabs of wood. He sees only the thin line of lamp light escaping from the room on the other side. In a few breaths his eyes adjust and enable him to make out the rooms single occupant.

The silhouette of Talia is motionless in an armchair. From behind he sees the frail skin of her neck sitting vulnerably bare, an open line to the thin pulse running through her veins. Her Hale blood holds power built on years of tradition and east coast salt.

“You’re losing your touch,” She says.

“Lack of practice, I’m afraid.” He sighs and steps into the room. 

The fire pit is hollow due to the July heat still lingering in the memory of a sun long set, yet the warm glow of scattered lamps pulse the imitation of being fireside. Cozy, some would say. Not Alan.

“It has nothing to do with practice,” Talia teases while looking at her novel. 

It’s a shock to see a paperback in her hands. The last time she pulled something from the shelves with the purpose of actually reading it must have been before he’d known her.

“No,” he concedes, “I suppose not.” 

And that was a mistake, to let the bitterness slide into his tone. She catches it too.

“There’s no need for that,” she huffs amused and looks at him. “You’re still my favourite, Alan,” but it no longer matters, he doesn’t say in response.

“I never would have imagined you were his,” he says off cuff instead. 

Peter was an obvious choice for Derek’s right hand, barely even a choice at all given how young Cora was. Having Talia as emissary was a different matter. Quite interesting indeed.

She tsks. “You have your own now, I see.” 

Her eyes are on the scarf he’d hung by the door upon entering. Baby blue, just like it’s owners eyes. Isaac left it in the clinic when visiting the assistant, the younger McCall. The two were an inevitable outcome, but an easy distraction for Alan to preoccupy himself playing with. Young hearts twist so easily.

Matched with words, as he always is with Talia, he settles into the arm chair opposite. The book is set aside and they sit in silence. This is familiar. Harvesting his thoughts, letting topics invade and flee from his mind in this shared space of deliberate mental sorting and all the while watching as she does the same.

“Why is Daniel running betas?” He opens with. 

It’s the most pressing question he has and though he can think of a multitude of answers he is aware enough to know none of them are correct. A lone shooter does not suddenly become a group leader.

“They’ve got energy to burn, we thought they could do more than chase their tails.”

We.

Talia folds her fingers together and rests them on her knee. Retired rulers tend not to stay close to the new ones. In fact, they tend to move out of the country and get away from it all. The thought has been lingering in his mind the longer she stays. It’s curious. By staying she is ruining Derek’s chances of being seen as an individual and remaining alive once she’s truly gone, and she knows it.

“Will the fire keep us warm or smoke out?” He counters.

“I suspect it depends on how well they play together.”

A single lamp between them sends their shadows out into the room, a small beacon of light low on the side table stretching them into willowy giants. He watches it’s tungsten glow as they resume silence and think.

x

Jackson hates California. More, Jackson hates Peter Hale. Were it not for him Jackson would not be leaning against a sticky bar top, not in a posture of comfort but one devised to let the cut of his designer clothes fall in straight lines. The natural way his features sit is in a light scowl, a fact he has no intention to change, and it deepens with every minute he remains waiting. 

Next to him a man with electric shocked hair and a twitch to his movements that brought to mind a junkie. His bloodshot eyes and bloated face do nothing to help the impression. Two years in this man’s company and Jackson’s never caught him ingesting anything harder than black coffee, if the tar from local gas stations he drank could be called such.

They wait over twenty minutes. Information of the meeting had been given to Jackson late and, he assumes, last. Expectations are useless. Derek had been Alpha less than three months when he’d left and he’d been out of sight for most of it, not much to base how the power has settled on the younger man's shoulders.

When they were kids Jackson pushed a six year old Derek into the dirt and told him to eat it. Laura had dragged him off by the hair. The memory twitches his lips, but it’s laced with bitterness by how it reminds him of how he landed in this position.

Newspapers reported excessive speed and icy roads were the reasons for Laura’s crash. The reporting officer had been on Argents payroll. Jackson had always known he was a replacement, it didn’t take a genius to think of a blond and blue eyed man off limits to Peter and a reason to want Laura out of the way. Putting it together had left him with a hollowness in his core. Laura hadn’t been anything close to a friend, but she had been the right hand and next Alpha in line. Peter's easy dismissal of her unnerved him, if not frightened him. So Jackson did what he’d been born to do and got in a fight with the wrong man.

 

Lydia had been upset, naturally, that her maid of honour did not live to see her marriage. Jackson had been drunk, bitter from witnessing her sorrowful tears on what should have been their day of celebration, and angry he’d foolishly put his trust in a two-faced man.

“A fine celebration,” The rumble of words was spoken against his spine and he felt Peter press against his back. They were in his office, removed from the dwindling party goers for a few quiet minutes alone. Lydia was waiting for him, somewhere.

“Its funny,” Jackson had forcibly giggled with help from the alcohol running in his system. 

He’d been looking in the mirror on the mantle, a captive of his own face. His blue eyes and dark blond hair wild in response to the stress of the night. The smirk on his face had fallen already at the thought of what great disaster lay ahead. He could see the ledge he was throwing himself off of and yet his feet continued to march forwards. Like a train headed straight for a blockade he charged along the doomed tracks set for him.

Peter feigned interest in his drunken rabble. 

“Oh?” He breathed against his ear, hands tight around his waist in a possessive hold.

“Both your lovers are married to redheads,” Jackson intently watched the lines of Peter's face as it darkened in the mirror. 

A slight twitch of a muscle was the only tell he’d struck a bone. If he’d been sober he wouldn’t have continued, if it hadn’t been his wedding night, if he hadn’t listened to Lydia sobbing in the washroom, maybe he would have kept his mouth shut. Probably not. He was his father's son.

“And now we’ve both killed for you, too.”

The sound registered before the pain. Cold unyielding glass stuck to his face where he’d collided with the mirror. Peters hand clenched the scruff of his neck and pressed him to it as hot blood dripped down his temple.

“Remember where you stand boy,” Peter growled. “There are better uses for your tongue, I’m sure your wife would hate for you to lose it.”

Upon his arrival home from the honeymoon he’d been informed of his new station in California. No longer Peters man, he’d been specifically selected by Derek to look into a different kind of venture. Derek told him he’d been recommended based on his knack for secrecy, but Jackson knew the way Peter had played him and saw the punishment it truly was.

Lydia had been livid. He’d suggested she move with him knowing she would never give up the life she’d built on the East Coast. In two years he’s seen her in California a skant three times. So much for newlywed bliss.

 

Blinding light from the scorching day outside shrieks in through an open door. Jackson grimaces at the painful blindness and squints at the silhouette on the other side of the dark room.

“Alpha,” he stands tall when he’s sure of who approaches. 

The title sits on his shoulders better now. He no longer swivels his head to look for his mother when someone addresses him, for one.

“‘Bout fucking time,” the man hunched beside him rumbles and shakes Derek’s hand like a dirty rag.

“Coach,” Derek offers in response.

The man huffs and walks into the dim edges of the room with a harsh brush past Jackson’s shoulder. Jackson shares a pointed look with Derek.

“Told you, piece of work.” He supplies under his breath. 

It feels companionable and he’s briefly grateful to see the other man if only to share in the act of judgement.

Derek turns to watch where Coach goes and stalks after him. He walks with sure steps through dark tunnels and stairways where both of his arms brush against the walls. He’s filled out since Jackson saw him last. Beneath the thin T-shirt that sticks to him in the Californian heat his back muscles are defined lines. It’s not unpleasant, per say, to follow behind him.

“You know why you’re here, I know why you’re here, Jackson sure as shit knows nothing but that’s pretty boys for ya, “ the man in front speaks without turning back in a manner more to himself than to the men behind him. 

They squeeze through a doorway into an office, or what passes as one with rampant paper and portfolios stacked on top of the furniture. A futon in the corner is buried under the weight of several pieces of dated sporting equipment and questionable throw pillows that give off a smell Jackson has never been able to place. If purgatory existed, this was it.

“Reckon, I used to be one of those pretty boys let me tell you. Used to pull the most in this place, still get a few calls to this day, ha!” 

He talks as he throws things around his desk. It does nothing to clear the space, the action similar to a city squirrel nesting in a pile of trash beneath a dumpster. Jackson stays on the far side behind Derek’s shoulder, bored already with a display he’s seen before. Instead he watches Derek’s stoic jawline out of the corner of his eye and studies the ways time has changed him. 

“Now, Mister Hale,” the clear distaste in his voice insulting, “Since the reason is clear I see no reason to restate said reasoning. You’re out of your bloody mind, is what it is.”

“Your opinion is of little concern,” Derek states without blinking.

Coach’s eyes bug out before he whips back into a frenzy.

“Right, but my opinion is backed by over thirty years in the business,” not a single hair on his head is grey, “as said I used to be a pretty boy with not a lot going on up top what with everything going on below, but the one thing I do know is how to run this shithole. You, sir, are not the man who would do anything but plow it into the ground.” Coach slams a stack of papers on the desk in demonstration. “Men like you aren’t made with the gumption for places like this. It’s not about the business, it’s about the people. You’re as cuddly as a cactus, you are.” He points accusingly at Derek.

“Will you sell or not?” Derek asks.

“You don’t get it!” Coach throws his arms into the air, then waves them as if to encompass it all, “The people here? They want to feel in charge, you gotta let them feel like they’re in charge and getting away with something ordinary men can’t. You have to make them feel powerful,” here Coach clenches both hands into tight balls before his face. “A man like you? I bet you haven’t said ‘please’ your whole life.” He tosses his hands now and sits back far in his chair, point made.

“Half up front, half when the title is transferred.”

“Derek,” Jackson cuts, because as insane as he is Coach has a point. 

Two years he’s been here and seen the slimiest of men treated like the high rollers they wished they were. It was an act to keep them craving the feeling of power and it needed to be kept up to keep them coming back. It was no place for Derek, for an Alpha. Not a word more could be said before Derek turned to him with a glare so heated for the first time Jackson saw the resemblance to Peter.

“Quiet.” Derek turned back to Coach, “yes or no?”

The man snorted and shook his head, “I’m not sure what you and your puppies plan on doing, but you won’t be doing it here.”

Jackson follows Derek outside. He’s not expecting the forearm across his windpipe and the scrape of plaster along his back. It shocks him into stillness under Derek’s hands.

“You do not speak unless spoken to,” Derek growls out, “questioning an Alpha in the face of an outsider is not how we conduct business. A pack acts as one, as part of it you fall in line, understood?”

There’s no air left in his lungs so he struggles to give a short nod. The pressure on his neck disappears and his shoulders drop. He swallows the copper taste of his bitten tongue and ducks his head to hide the anger. Derek’s not wrong. Jackson never would have interrupted Talia in a conversation.

“Jackson,” The Alpha says.

“Understood,” he spits and keeps his eyes on the faded parking lot beneath his shoes, trying to ignore the shaking of his limbs and the buzzing in his veins.

“Jax,” he meets the Alpha’s eyes. “You did well.”

There’s a disgusting earnesty to it and an ache releases in Jackson’s chest. He lets out a great breath and with it two years worth of tension stops vibrating inside of him in a way that leaves his body numb and soft. Peter’s tight and twisted hands used to have the same effect when they held him down. It’s been two years of uncertainty, of aimless floating and restless worrying but this puts an end to all of it. His time spent isolated in this hell pit does not change who he is, what he is. Like a wayward puzzle piece found under the couch he still fits into the bigger picture.

He still belongs to the Pack.

x

The flight back East had contained not one, but four screaming children. Four. His eyelids feel weighted as they slip closed.

“This would help if you were listening,” Talia barks at him. 

He squeezes his eyes tight before opening them and drops the hand he’d been resting his chin on to the armrest of the padded leather chair.

“I’m listening.” He grunts.

“It’ll be an associate. With the Argents dissolved the dogfight for second place has tentatively settled on Duke. A man like him will see the opening our shift in power has created to wipe out a new ruler and score two territories at once. Whoever mentions him to you is the most likely suspect.”

Derek can’t help but snort.

“In which case it’s Deaton. He won’t shut up about him.” 

Talia gives him a plain stare.

“Derek,” She says his name in the way only a mother can and an instinctual eye roll follows from him.

“I understand.” He rebukes harshly and heaves himself back out of the chair to stalk around the room. Comprehension is not the issue. Giving a shit is.

When he reaches the desk he leans against it, looking out at the clear night before him. Moonlight cuts the yard into long gloomy shadows. Behind him he hears the tinkle of ice in a crystal cup. They sit in silence, as they usually do, and wait. He wonders which one will leave first tonight. The stars are incredibly bright. Slowly he picks out the constellations Paige taught him, and then the ones he made up with her, and then the ones he’d swore he could find printed copies of on her back.

“Your father used to dream you’d be president.”

The absurd admission strikes him off balance. He whirls to see his mother staring fro her seat into the empty fireplace. An emotion he’s never seen pulls at her features. It looks like longing.

“He’d watch you with all your friends and he’d say ‘there goes mister president, I hope he shakes my hand.’” 

Her grimace is tight when she looks at him and he feels winded. As an unwritten rule they don’t discuss his father. His throat is the Sahara. His mother shakes her head softly, fondly. The glass in her palm is empty and her eyes are shining. The sight is so unnerving he can do no more than stand frozen in silence, like the scene is a snowflake that will melt on his finger if he tries to hold it.

“He was a foolish man, but I wanted to believe it.” She laughs sadly, “I wanted you to become governor, senator, then president.” She clears her throat and finally releases the hold her eyes have on him when she looks back to the fireplace.

Derek sucks in a rush of air. He feels unequivocally young. The woman before him sniffles talks in a voice weighed with emotion. 

“When you left for L.A. I dreamt the next time I saw you I’d offer my hand and you would refuse it.” 

It’s more than she has offered before. As sweet as it sounds, as much as he wants to get rid of the rogue tears on her face, words can not raise the dead.

“I wouldn’t,” he says, voice thick. Not to be cruel, but to be honest. “If Laura was alive I wouldn’t be speaking with you.”

There’s no surprise from her. She’d expected it, because she’s an intelligent woman, and because she knew he was right. Four years ago they stood in this very office and he had accused her of the ruination of their family.

His father had a drug addiction. The suicide note Derek read with trembling hands that left bloody traces smeared on the crisp paper had detailed the events leading up to Cora’s abduction. How his father had crossed the wrong men at the wrong time and they’d taken his daughter as recompense. How he couldn’t face the world knowing what he’d caused Cora to go through. How he missed his brother, the uncle Derek couldn’t remember. It was a tragedy, but one piece was missing, one vital part of the story that no one else questioned but Derek had confronted his mother about The story didn’t begin with his father being an addict, it began when he went to Derek’s mother and instead of the help he needed she gave him a handful of pills.

Derek’s mother was the reason for his father’s addiction and every consequence it had.

Silence swallows them whole, an end to the last conversation mother and son will share. Derek turns to the moon and tries to remember the sound of Paige saying his name.

 

The next day Derek ponders what the percentage of chance had been in his favour to find not one, but both of his parents' dead bodies. He knows, though can’t remember how or why, his mother was the one to find her father's body. Another curse he’d inherited from her.

 

A mid morning melody of Cora’s piano practice filled the halls. He’d tried to spend time with her, but the Pack kept him busier than he’d expected and the stress left him easily irritable. Normally the sound of her music calmed him. That day every minute of the piece made his teeth grind. It was Talia’s song on repeat.

Derek slammed the fridge door. After chugging half of his drink he pushed the sweaty hair from his forehead. The hour after dawn had been spent jogging past every man stationed along the property perimeter, but the absence of Boyd’s matched breathing was as apparent as a missing limb.

He was happy for the man, in theory. When he’d broken the news of his engagement Derek had nodded his approval, closed the door quietly, and proceeded to drink himself into a rage in which several crystal pieces were broken. The next day he’d showered and tucked away any emotion he had on the matter as neatly as he did up the buttons of his white silk shirt, and had continued to do so up until the day of celebration. The happy couple were now on honeymoon and Derek was left sweating in his socks.

A walk through the halls revealed the ground floor empty, not uncommon enough to tip him off. Cora started the piece again. His steps were heavy on the stairs and clashed against the delicate melody. All along the halls he marched, banging every door open to find empty room after empty room. The last was the master. His hesitation was minimal yet it’s existence fueled his temper, one of the few things he inherited from his mother. If he had the listen to the song, so should the woman it was meant for.

The door flew open under his palm and slammed into the wall behind it. A body lay on the bed.

Downstairs the melody came to an end.

 

A seizure caused by delayed swelling of the skull. They’d been expecting it for two years, a plan had been in place for it since the night Derek had taken over as Alpha. Phone calls were made, hands were shaken, and now he watched his reflection on the lacquered lid of yet another coffin sink into the family plot as he stood over it and tossed the first handful of dirt.

He resumes his place with Peter by the grave and holds Cora close on his other. There are no tears in his eyes.

He’s marching towards the car when a slick haired man approaches him.

“Derek, my sentiments to your family.”

“Much appreciated,” he slows his steps but does not stop.

“I’m sure you’re aware of the current situation I’m dealing with.”

Derek gives the man a glance. McCall. He remembers Deaton mentioning something, but today is not the day for the FBI to be needling their plight. The man continues either oblivious or in spite of Derek’s silence. 

“Recently Deucalion has extended his hand to us, says he’ll come to a bargain in exchange for a meeting with you.”

Fitting. His mother's body is nearly warm still and this bastard is already trying. Maybe he thought Derek wouldn’t notice if he was distraught over a death. Maybe he thought Derek wasn’t intelligent enough to see the set up. Didn’t matter what he thought. He was an idiot.

“I’ll be in touch,” Derek says as he approaches the car and unbuttons his suit coat, “Now you’ll have to excuse me, there’s a mourning to host.”

He bends into the door readily opened for him and doesn’t give another glance to the man planning to kill him. In the car he greets Cora with a silent slip of his palm into hers. She is quick to lean on his side, hers the only tears from the family today. He runs his hand through her hair and around her shoulders. The drive is slow through town traffic. When her tears have run out she’s landed with her head in his lap, his hand gently in her hair.

“Did Boyd tell you?” She asks quietly.

When thinking of death one can only think of birth, he muses. Hope is growing inside Erica’s stomach.

“He did,” He says quietly, “he asked me to be the Godfather.”

“And?” She asks with wide eyes, “will you?”

He looks past the tinted glass to the crazy world surrounding them. Safe, in this small sanctuary he’s created. They were safe.

“Yes.”

x

A baptism takes place on October seventh. Rafters hammered together by foreign hands support the steeple housing a bronze bell. It sends it’s deep persistent message throughout the town, a dull note unnoticed by the public but heard by those with an ear for it.

Vernon Boyd is one such person. The first toll is in time with his step into an elevator. It’s no nickel and dime place. Gilded gold panels of the elevator's interior shine like a box of mirrors. A smooth portrait of Victoria Argent is reflected on every wall. The doors close. When they open there is no living person left, just the dead body of a woman with nails gleaming the same hue as her blood.

The second toll is unheard on the other side of the country, but is in time with the club owner known as Coach fumbling to feed change into a parking meter outside a massage parlour. He bends to grab a dropped quarter and is hit through the skull by a silent shot. The shooter steps out of the foreclosed apartment building several blocks away and walks casually to a car on the other side of the road, a navy blue gym bag thrown over his shoulder.

By the time the third bell rolls out Gerard Argent is dead and Danny is gritting his teeth. From glimpses across the street the prostitute left crying for help in an empty hotel room was broad shouldered and slight waisted. The image of him paired with the rush of a hot gun still in his hands means Danny is fucked. God damn Jackson for not being here. It’s the highest kill he’s executed since the gang leader in California and he’s got no mind to waste this boner on his palm but shit, it would have been much sweeter if Jackson was the one under him.

Derek Hale exits a church on the fourth ring.

The fifth echoing ring is in time with the smirk sliding off of Rafael McCall’s face when Alan Deaton stops ten feet away from the car he’d thought they were sharing. The top of the open door is still in his hand when he notices the vehicle is surrounded by faceless men too purposefully placed to be casual.

“It was business,” he says, “I’ve got nothing against the kid. We can call this a lesson learned, I mean,” his laugh is forced, “I’ve been here since the start. That’s gotta mean something.”

“It means you should have been smarter with your business.”

Rafael grinds his jaw in an effort not to say more. Alan imagines it must be hard to have so much pride you wouldn’t say your last words out of spite. Rafael stiffly gets in and the door slams.

 

Weeks later a message is spread through word of mouth. Christopher Argent, the only Argent left alive, wants to meet. A few weeks more and Derek stands adjacent to him.

“My father was the scum of this earth. I’ve no reason to draw out his legacy than I do saw my own toes off.” He says right to the cut. “I’m not Peter, I’ve never chased after the heavy crown. I walk away and I’m not ever coming back, all deals are dissolved. I’d appreciate it if we never saw each other again.”

He walks away without a single glance over his shoulder. Derek holds a hand out to stop his bodyguard from shooting the man. On his left wrist had been a bracelet of cheap plastic beads. From where he’d stood Derek had been able to make out the words ‘#1 DAD’. He watches as Chris gets in his car with shaking hands and drives off carefully at the speed limit.

When the car can no longer be seen Derek sits and watches the river. It rages beneath him with the pitiless violence of nature. When he closes his eyes he can feel the spray from the rocks settling on his skin. He breathes it in deeply.

Days later he asks Peter to meet him at a den, says there’s an issue. The crash that follows makes the evening news. The flames burn for hours. Left are the steel roll cage of the car and charred bones and it’s a sight he never wishes to see again. It does nothing to soothe him when he looks up to the moon and tries to recall the sound of rushing water. All he hears is the cacophony of a car exploding and the roar of a fire.

x

The door cracks against the wall behind her when she storms into the office. She plants her feet so her toes brush the edge of the desk and looms over him.

“Did you do it?” She demands. He doesn’t reply, doesn’t look from the paper he’s reading. She tears it from his hands and throws it to the ground. “Did you do it?” Furry so consuming it’s near blinding starts to vibrate her bones.

“No.” The word is barely from his mouth before she cries out over him.

“He was family!” An asshole and a pervert and whatever else, he was still the man who taught her how to tie her shoes. Who let her paint his nails when she was five. Hiccups start to bubble up and she realizes she’s been holding her breath.

“Cora perhaps it’s best we go,” Deaton cautions from behind her. He doesn’t touch her but it hardly makes a difference, the sound of his voice jumps her all the same.

“No!” She spits and wipes her eyes and snarls at the stationary monster before her. “Derek, you asshole. Tell me you fucking murdered your own uncle. Tell me to my face.”

“Enough, Cora,” Derek nods at Deaton over her shoulder like she’s a child who can be talked over. He still hasn’t looked her in the eyes. She knows because she’s been glaring at him. “I’m sorry you have such little faith in me.”

“You should be sorry I’m stuck with you,” She heaves and throws everything on his desk to the ground in a great swipe of anger. “Out of all of them I’m left with you,” She yells and finally he reacts. 

Something vicious and shallow in her feels gratified by the way he ducks his head.

“I’ll meet you in California.” He says beneath the sound of her snarling breath and slowly he begins to pick up the things on the ground.

She watches this thing in front of her, this being that is no longer known to her. Derek has been gone for a long time. It was stupid of her to believe he would be the older brother she needed. Boyd had been a placeholder, someone she could look up to and lean on in the meantime, but she’d always held out hope the phone calls and visit meant Derek was still hers. Meant he would come back to her. In the two years he’s been back he’s been busier than ever, harsher with his dismissals of her and outright rude in a way he’d never been. This was not the Derek who made chocolate chip pancakes with her on Saturday mornings.

The door slams behind her and she stops outside of it to catch her breath. She’d thrown the door too harshly to catch the latch and it’s bounced a few inches. The low tones of male voices are enough to make her pause and listen.

“She has a fair reason to believe the rumours,” Deatons voice comes through, “Many people are questioning if…” his voice no longer carries far enough for her to make out the words, he must have turned to look the other way.

“It’s not like you to…“ she half hears Derek reply. “Don’t make a habit of it.”

Repulsion boils under her veins. She storms down the hall with hot tears on her cheeks and doesn’t stop until she has a backpack on her bed. Screw California.

x

Alan met Talia Hale as a child. They’d never been friends. Each had their own circle in school they stuck to religiously, there was no need to look elsewhere for company. It was the time standing off to the side of their socializing parents connecting them. Years of sitting in parlour corners and garden benches had allowed for the oddly truthful conversation between acquaintances without the barriers of friendship to adhere to; embarrassing facts weren’t omitted to save face and opinions weren’t sugar coated to save feelings. It was a companionship built on annual holiday gatherings and the odd birthday party his parents were invited to as associates of the Pack.

He was in his final year of a veterinary degree and working on a midterm paper when she’d appeared at his door on campus. Every time he thinks of the memory he vividly recalls the fluffy bunny slippers he’d been wearing, a joke gift turned useful in the old dorms, while she informed him Alpha Hale had been murdered. He gave his sentiments, as expected. The silence that lapsed allowed his suspicions to grow. The last time he’d spoken to her before this was a ‘Congratulations’ letter when he’d heard about her baby girl. Two years ago. There was another reason she was there, but for the first time he realised she had something she was nervous about saying.

“What do you get from my company?” He’d asked, unsure of her motive for tracking him down.

“The truth.”

And he gave it to her. When she asked him to become emissary to the Pack she’d been left to spearhead he’d agreed, if only because he knew he would always tell her the truth. Not many people could promise the same to another human being.

Her death left him aimless. He’d become too comfortable and narrowed in his life’s routine. The death of his Alpha had been so likely he’d become numb to its lurking possibility, not forgetting to remember it could happen but forgetting what it would mean when it did. Laura’s succession was expected, her quick death not. It took a very strong will not to stand on Talia’s grave and think ‘I told you so’ when Peter died by Derek’s vengeful hand.

He meanders his way through the halls he’s walked for twenty six years. They feel void. A melancholy note rings in him for the people who will never step foot in it again. The trampling of toddler feet, the hollering of teenagers, the laughter of a family living and growing. He’d watched it all from the sidelines, in a way a part of their happiness by virtue of being one of the last to know of its existence.

The door to the office stands open. Through the space between the doors he sees Danny’s habitual parade stance and the curled blond head of Isaac beside him. Shifting his weight his view shifts to find the vague form of the last contribution he’ll make to the Pack, Scott McCall.

Boyd’s voice rumbles in a low bass, drawing Alan’s attention to the solid mass of him before the desk, “Alpha Hale.”

Derek’s features are cut sharp in the pale sunlight streaming over him. Alan’s focus of the scene tightens until the only thing he sees are Derek’s pale eyes. A trick of the light he knows, but for a second, a mere second, they flash blood red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you continue on to read the Parts of this series, Part 3: Exposed would fit in right about now. It's full of Scott/Isaac goodness.   
> Check it. 
> 
> May I pretty please with a cherry on top have a comment?   
> **flutters eyelashes hopefully**


	4. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you were wondering, Soundproof (Part 2 of H.A.L.E. series) would fit in neatly right HERE
> 
> Go check it out if you're a slut for the smut like moi ;) or you just want more Sterek! Let's be real, that's why we're all here!

Jordan Parrish arrives at the Beacon Hills Sheriff's Department on the brink of his twentieth birthday. The other deputies take their time testing him out, but he finds himself overall enjoying their company, including Sheriff Stilinski. The man is well respected and easy to joke with, even when he’s putting Jordan through the rookie trials of desk duty and inventory. If sometimes he seems absent or withdrawn it’s easy to excuse for the comfortable way he commands the crew. Then, four months in, the man locks himself in his office for half the day.

Jordan’s eyes flicker to the closed door with increasing frequency the longer it remains shut.

“We told him to take it off and spend it with his son, you know?” 

Jordan jumps at being caught when Deputy Samuels whispers to him over the desktop monitor. He plays it cool and leans back in his chair to hear better. 

“It’s the anniversary of his wife’s death. Two years ago, some disease in her brain. Got nasty near the end.”

A twinge of sympathy runs through Jordan at the news. He straightens and returns to his work, his eyes not straying for the rest of the day. With a pencil he marks the date on his calendar at home.

The next day is better and within the week the Sheriff is back to his charismatic self. When his son comes to visit the two joke around and the boy calls Jordan rookie like he’s one of the deputies.

Years pass and Jordan loves being a deputy. He works in a small town with small town problems and he works with small town people. They still call him rookie with fondness but he feels he’s earned his place. A desk plaque with his name on it was made. He actually has art hung on his apartment walls. The barista knows his name and order. He sees the rest of his life laid out for him in this small town and it soothes him with its simplicity and routine.

With no family at home and the youngest birth year on the force by a decade Jordan is familiar with the night patrol shifts. On his first shift he’d clicked his patrol radio on and off after every five minutes of silence to ensure it hadn’t died, now he does so hourly. The familiar double beep of it powering back up is in time with the whine of a classic rock song playing so low on the car radio the air of the open windows threaten to wash it out if he goes above fifteen. His fingers tap to the tune against the gear shift. Neon lights of the dashboard and low sodium street lamps make the world glow in dim saturation. Smooth satisfaction comes from rolling to a complete stop perfectly in front of a stop line with no other car in sight.

A call crackles through the radio and Jordan jumps so hard his head hits the window. The dispatcher's voice is clinical and to the point on the other side, but the code they use makes Jordan taste bile. He switches his lights on and copies the call at the same time. Within seven minutes he’s parked in front of an alley near the town library that smells of rotting food from a restaurant's dumpster. 

Silence answers his announcing call but he wasn’t expecting much of one to begin with. The beam of his flashlight reflects off of wet asphalt and oily potholes until it freezes. A torn sweatshirt in a memorable hue of red he’s seen flash around the office on weekends lays dragged through the grime, an inanimate object so associated with innocence that it’s twisted appearance is nothing less than vulgar. Veins filled with lead he walks until he can see around the dumpster and finds a sight tenfold worse. 

The Sheriff's son squints at the glare of his flashlight. Patches of his skin are raw with road burn where his clothes are missing or been torn and his face is already swelling with bruises. The kid must recognize the uniform for he throws himself at Jordan with the awkward limbs of a child and clings.

Jordan will forever consider the following night as the worst hours spent wearing his badge. The long minutes it took for the ambulance to arrive and he struggled to guide the kid through breathing between uncontrollable sobbing. A tense conversation at the hospital where he informed the Sheriff. Watching the features of a man he respected twist in horror and devastation under fluorescent lights that did nothing to hide the wrinkles lining his grey face. Jordan showered the dirt and blood off that night and found bruised handprints where the boy had held onto him. He closed his eyes under the spray and tried to forget the sound of him crying for his father.

The Sheriff approaches him after the court case that left no one satisfied.

“Thank you,” he says, “Stiles doesn’t say much about it, but he wanted to thank you too.”

Jordan nods, “it’s the job, sir,” he says automatically, “I’d do anything to help.”

The Sheriff relaxes into a stance Jordan is more familiar with, one that from experience says he’ll be asked to do something he doesn’t want to do, but will say yes because it’s not really a question.

“In that case, there’s a game on this Sunday and Stiles doesn’t let me eat anything off of the grill, but he might if there’s a guest.” The Sheriff pats him on the shoulder, “Stop by for a bit.”

And he’s gone, disappearing back into his office.

“You good?” Deputy Samuels asks when he sits down at the adjacent desk. Jordan blinks the stunned look off of his face and picks up a pencil without knowing what he’s going to write.

“Yeah,” he lies.

 

On Sunday he arrives at the Stilinski house. It’s awkward but the burgers are good so he accepts the invite for the next game. And the next one. The Sheriff's demeanour doesn’t change, he stays the surprisingly sarcastic man Jordan knows from work, though maybe happier than usual due to the meat he gets away with eating. 

Stiles is in high school and his hero worship was slow to appear but evident in the bombardment of rapid questions asked either out of genuine curiosity or want of attention. Jordan is fine with remedying both once the kid stops calling him rookie. The Stilinski’s quick wit and energetic banter is a stark contrast to the reserved elderly grandparents Jordan was raised by, but soon he’s sharing a meal with them more weekends than not and Stiles no longer allows meat to be on the table because ‘he’s not a guest anymore, dad.’

It begins to feel like family.

Everything collapses the day someone shoots the Sheriff.

 

Six years after stepping foot in Beacon Hills for the first time Jordan sits motionless and stares at the cellphone in front of him. It’s screen is off and reflects nothing but the speckled ceiling of the office. For two years he’s tried to stop feeling like an imposter sitting in the cheap office chair the bureau provided. Now he hunches down in it with confusion.

Over and over he replays the voice he heard on the other side. It was not the usual tired voice of an overworked young man, it was smooth like warmed honey.

“Forget something, Alpha Hale?” Stiles had answered in a purr that travelled through Jordan’s spine and froze him in place.

“Not quite,” he’d managed to choke out.

Stiles had sputtered and rambled about joking around with his friends. It didn’t feel like a joke. Not when every other time he’d called during daylight hours Stiles sounded like he’d woken up. Or when he navigated himself around every question asked about his new life in Los Angeles. Jordan can understand Stiles’ need to find a new start after the events that happened in Beacon Hills, but it was hard to get past feeling like he owed it to the late Sheriff to watch over his son. His teenage son. Who answered the phone at six in the morning sounding like sex with the name of a high profile organized crime ringleader dripping from his lips.

Jordan books a flight to Los Angeles that night.


	5. Out of Mind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's late!  
> Enter Stage Right: Stiles
> 
> This is technically the beginning of the second movie. Yay! That means we bounce between timelines now. Double yay!  
> (can you sense the sarcasm??) We are now two years ahead of the last scene, a total of four years after the start. 
> 
>  
> 
> NOTE THE YEARS

1988

Her two front teeth overlap. Their crooked handshake is so slight it’s unnoticed unless directly studied, which he’s done. He loves her. God, does he love her. Having Laura was an impulse, and he’ll admit the pregnancy was the reason he proposed so quickly, but these were less surprises and more plans happening sooner than expected. Real surprise is the dark cherry wood coffin at his feet. He didn’t plan for this.

The priest’s voice drones like an unattended television. Every face William looks at dips and turns to hide their searching eyes from his own, like nighttime shadows slinking into crevices only to reamurge once he’s passed. It’s not him they’re looking at. Her hand stays steady. His grip is sweaty and tight, but his fingers refuse to loosen. They won’t ever stop looking. He shifts the weight of Laura in his other arm, the chubby weight of her slack as she dozes.

The Father turns his back and the crowd circles them like a murder of crows on new territory, sorting themselves into pecking order with short words and harsh gestures. The weight of them presses on his lungs. He holds Laura tighter. They shake his wife’s hand awkwardly around her swollen belly, bowing heads and kissing palms one after another after another.

“Laura is done. We’ll be in the car,” he says with eyes on the horizon and turns with such haste he nearly trips when his feet sink into the grass, still wet from the morning rain. A face as familiar as his own falls into step beside him.

“This doesn’t have to be a bad thing.” His brothers forcefully light tone grates on him. Every step he takes leaves a deep gouge in the muddy ground, a trail of open wounds in his wake. It’s satisfying, and he lets his feet become heavier.

“Peter's wrath is not a good thing.”

“He’s a child. He’ll whine and make a fuss to get attention, but he can’t touch her.” 

In his peripheral he sees the way his brother says it, with a casual roll of his head like there truly is nothing to worry about, like he’s being an idiot to believe otherwise.

William hums in lieu of responding. Peter may have the temperament of a child, but there’s no doubt his pudgy prepubescent hands caught insects with the sole purpose of pulling off wings. The conversation stutters, uncomfortable silence that’s becoming too familiar between them, and they habitually march in time. 

A throb in his forehead blinds him for seconds and he falters a step to brace against it, sucking air in through his nose and huffing it out in an attempt to ease the tension of his jaw, but stubbornly it refuses to loosen. He shoves half of his limbs into the backseat of the car and hunches to settle Laura into the car seat.

“She’s changing her name back.” He says through his clenched jaw while he works the buckles. 

The clasps are loud when he snaps them together but the toddler doesn’t stir, not even when he tugs a little too hard on the straps.

“What?” It’s satisfying to know his brother's voice is a mirror of his own, to know this is the exact way he’d sounded when he’d seen the papers himself.

“It’s Alpha Hale, not Alpha Lahey.” He mimics the flatness of her voice as he’d heard it.

He straightens and slams the back door. The tinted glass reflects a man in a rumpled suit with a stubbled jaw and a grimace so severe it horrifies him in it’s likeness to his father's. Somewhere his wife is shaking hands with a crowd of people who will never get enough, and as they devour her presence all they see is her glowing perfection. They don’t notice her two front teeth.

He meets the tired eyes of the man in the window.

You love her, he thinks. That’s the problem.

x

2014

The crowd in the parlour is nothing extravagant, a mere fifty shiny bastards of the west coast and minimal arm candy to get in the way. An anniversary was cause for celebration, yet exclusivity often did more than boastful bashing. An added benefit was the minimal noise obstruction allowed important business to be conducted in a proper manner.

“You’re out of your fucking mind.” The Senator says. 

Derek frowns at the pen balancing in his hand. The frequency of people informing him of this is increasing at an alarming rate. He thinks it’s the default response of men not brave enough to take what they want when faced with a man who will. After all, his psych evals with the LAPD had always come back relatively level, no easy feat considering the upbringing he had.

“This is a rather generous opportunity to invest in your future, Senator Harris.” 

It’s an effort not to sound bored. Middle aged men, all the same. When he’d opened Jungle two years ago he’d known it was the right choice and the way he wanted to move forward. Unfortunately, branching out was taking longer than he’d planned, largely due to men like the one before him.

“Absolutely not,” The red faced man spits out, “I wont have your whores trolloping up and down the streets.” 

The pen balanced on the side of Derek’s hand wobbles when his fist clenches. He flicks a glance at the Senator.

“I gather you’ve not been listening closely,” he says deliberately slow. He knows the man is dull, but to be so blatantly ignorant proves there truly is no limit to stupidity. “In any case, you’ll find our carpet is better kept than Marcelli’s when your face is pressed into it.”

It’s perhaps not the most elegant way to persuade the Senator to approve the licenses’ Derek needs to move forward, but it’s momentarily satisfying to see the speechless spitting anger of a useless man.

“I won't stand to be insulted by a boy barely filling out a suit.” 

The man stands. Derek grinds his heels into the floor to fight off the urge to do the same in a silent mockery of how he is clearly inches taller than Harris and twice his width. 

“The price has doubled, and don’t dare think I won't drag your associates through shit if they act as your puppet. You’ve a better chance of pissing up a tree than opening doors in this state within the next ten years.”

The office door slams. The pen drops in a tiny clatter and an eye roll comes over him in a full body affair. It stretches his neck and shoulders in a pleasing way. A disapproving sigh comes from behind him.

“We do need him, regardless of how much of an ass he is.” Boyd says.

“I’m not giving him a cent more than already offered. He can take his wire glasses and shove them up his-”

“Derek.” He looks from the crumpled paper clenched in his fist to the only man in the house he wouldn’t punch for interrupting him. “We need him.”

Derek tosses the paper to the desk and grinds his jaw. Fucking middle aged men. Every time he meets with one he prays to be murdered before he turns into anything remotely close to one. Should he look in the mirror and find one he’ll do the job himself.

“Send eyes and ears, organize something we can use to press on him.” He says. “No need to rush.” 

He throws his weight backwards and slides away from the desk, stretching to roll out his back once more and push his shoulders into the chair so it creaks at it’s limit. The California office may have a better view than the house on the East Coast, but it’s air was just as stifling. 

“Anything new?” He asks while standing.

“She made it to South America.”

Derek hides his face in the movement of shrugging on his suit jacket. South America. She’d always been pale, unlike him and Laura she inherited the fair skin of their father. Easy to burn and quick to freckle. He can’t help the errant hope she’s wearing enough sunscreen before he does up the first button and locks away the thoughts of her.

Air laced with sweet liquor and musky colognes wafts over him in the parlour doorway. A hum of low voices fills the room, everyone amiable enough to pretend they like each other for the night. The hour is late enough for heated collisions to have either happened or been avoided by an early exit, the remaining guests flush with the superiority of attending an exclusive event. Derek stalks slowly along the edges scanning the room for a sign. It appears as a vacant arm chair in a room of standing people.

“Certainly a surprise to find a stunning woman without company,” he opens as he perches on the edge of the seat, elbows on his knees and hands clasped before him.

“Mr. Hale, your presence has been lacking.” She’s trying for alluring, and to most she succeeds. 

Derek’s heard better. It’s the sound of a breath cut off by a moan, or a curse, or his name, or all three rolled into one. Derek lets the memory of it ease him into the role he knows he must play and lowers the note of his own voice.

“Absolutely no way to show my gratitude for your support. I would hate for you to get the wrong idea,” he holds out his hand, “let me apologize in a more private setting.” 

Her tough olive-toned hand slides into his. The dress draped on her athletic frame is a rather vulgar match to the shade of spilled blood. Derek prefers pale skin spread on ebony silk sheets.

“You have a growing reputation, Mr. Hale. I do hope you live up to it.”

Despite their smooth journey through the room Derek spies several eyes tracking them, taking in the sight of Alpha Hale and Deucalion’s right hand leaving together. The move is a show for them, for the people they will tell and the way they will tell it, and every pair of eyes he feels eats it up. In the office the two discuss the finer details of their pending alliance. The deal will secure the Pack and it’s associates exempt from Duke’s particularly nasty dealings, in return for the over abundant product supply Derek was left with in the aftermath of the Argent’s dissolvement. 

If successful it would be the first deal ever done between the two distinguished rivals, and as such it has been months of harsh negotiation and power play to reach these final stages. She might cut a little too close into his space, he might brush against her skin when he whispers essential numbers and names. It’s the closest they get to fulfilling the assumptions of the evening's crowd, but it’s true, the Hale Pack and Deucalion’s ring are in bed together.

“A pleasure, Mr. Hale,” she says upon parting, “we’re looking forward to meeting the puppies. I’ve heard you don’t collar yours,” she says over her shoulder from the end of the hall. There’s a glint in her eyes like the flash of a blade. “What a shame,” she sings and turns the corner.

The hairs on his arms lift and he can’t pinpoint why. He shares a questioning look with Boyd stationed outside the office door. Derek has had enough of these halls. His footsteps thunder along wooden boards until fresh air greets his skin. Boyd follows, unshakable, but his presence has become no more noticeable than his own shadow and Derek relishes in the solitude of the moment. The stars are out tonight.

The trail of a scent catches his attention. It leads him around the house until the glowing red tip of the culprit is spotted resting in slim fingers. Derek freezes. There’s a name caught on his tongue, his mouth already open to call it. But the shoulders are inches too tall, the curls too unruly, and with seconds of focus the ghost disappears to reveal Isaac. Derek swallows heavily and pushes forward. There are several unread messages on Derek’s phone from the boy. A part of him curses his luck, but the part that keeps him walking forward recognizes the inevitability of this meeting.

“You shouldn’t smoke.” Derek says sharply, still shaken by the night's cruel trick. Isaacs eyes are silver pinpricks in the light of a half-moon.

“I don’t.” He says with eyes on the cigarette burning in his hands. He taps it awkwardly while the air grows heavy with its smoke. “I don’t go to parties either, but I’ve grown tired of being ignored.”

“Know your place,” Derek warns lightly, but from Isaacs snear he can see it's not taken that way.

“I know my place, it’s the plot next to Cam and dads,” he tilts his head and jabs at Derek with the cigarette, “just across from yours.”

“Isaac,” Derek cuts with a growl, “You have my attention, do something with it.”

“The Wolfe brothers have been paying visits.” Isaac spits in the dirt of the flowerbed and taps. 

Derek waits to see if he’ll elaborate. He doesn’t.

“If Danny is aware I see no need to interfere.” 

It was Danny who asked to take him in. The two snipers had been like brothers, he’d told Derek, it was only right he honoured Camden’s memory through Isaac. He made no mention of Derek's lack of action concerning his cousin, but the conversation had left Derek both bitter and relieved, his guilt like an oozing wound infecting any mention of the boy with an instinctive lash of anger.

“Danny’s busy keeping eyes on heads, he can’t hold hands and pull a trigger at the same time.” Isaac says.

“And you expect me to hold your hand?” Derek scowls.

“I expect you to be an Alpha. The brothers are getting violent,” Isaac pauses before admitting “and we’re not the only new kids around.” 

Derek stares at the shadow he knows to be Isaac, waiting once more for elaboration. Glowing embers jerk in a tap and vanish as they burn out. 

Finally, he elaborates, “They’re working with someone.” 

Isaac confirms the worst of Derek’s suspicion.

“Deucalion.” Derek declares with only half the thought formed. 

Isaac’s eyes widen at the name and Derek runs the variables to see if fact fits suspicion. ‘You don’t collar yours,’ Kali had said, like she was comparing. The air burns.

The cousins stand in silence as the implications settle on their shoulders. To Derek it feels like a barber's cape cinched an inch too tight to catch the blood of a slit neck. He’s still trying to calculate to what purpose Deucalion would employ mud runners like the Wolfe brothers when Isaac speaks.

“When I was a kid I tried to follow Cam one night. Thought I’d catch him being Batman or some shit,” he looks pained as he talks, even in the dim night Derek can see the tension in his movements as he gets out a pack. “He caught me in the big house and chewed me out. Said I should never talk to anyone I saw him working with. Said men in this business were like bears, you should avoid eye contact but not let them out of your sight,” he takes a new cigarette from the pack and puts it between his lips. “Aunt Talia overheard and came up to us. Thought Cam was going to shit himself,” an awkward twist of his lips, “She said he was almost right, with an exception. Deucalion?” His face glows in firelit while he sparks up, “Men like him are mountain lions,” one short drag and he holds it to the side, shadows invading his face once more. “You see him and it’s already too late.”

Isaac turns on his heels and walks into the garden. The red glow of his cigarette illuminates his wayward path into the darkness like a drunken firefly.

Derek tilts his head to look at the sliver of a crescent moon and breathes in the memories of clumsy teenagers and back door smokes.

x

They hand him a badge and he laughs until tears collect in the corner of his eyes. His father was rolling in his grave while he wore it that night. After shift he’s in the back room throwing his crap into a backpack. He’s strung out and his movements are jerking with the tension of holding back a melt down until he leaves this fucking building.

“Stiles, the boss is waiting.” The bane of his existence says from the doorway.

“Referring to ourselves in third person now?” 

He scowls and chucks his bag onto his shoulder. The tension has left his body aching and the call of a hot shower and the duvet of his own bed was strong.

Jackson shakes his head, “Not me idiot.”

Stiles’ limbs want to freeze and bounce at the same time so his muscles lock but his fingers tap nervously at the zipper of his bag and his foot hiccups a rhythm. It’s gotta be a cruel joke.

“No one told me he was in town.” He says defensively while watching Jackson to see what he’s trying to play at. The man in question doesn’t seem to like the news anymore than he does.

“You’re not the only one, he showed up an hour ago without notice.” Jackson says with a tightness to his jaw, and most tellingly storms off without rubbing Stiles’ nose in it.

Stiles’ bag hits the chair with a dull thud. His mind is a loading page with a multi-coloured wheel of death spinning between his temples. Lydia always gives him a day's notice to prepare himself. Enough time to request the night off, to sleep in all day, to shower thoroughly. Now his skin is musty with the scent that comes after a long shift and his hair is a slick mess of sweat. It itches along his scalp and creeps down his arms until he has a whole body shudder. Recollection tells him exactly how the man is standing, waiting. Stiles is in his fucking street clothes.

The hallway is brightly lit after hours, easy to clean and navigate but useless to him when his body is numb and electric and there is no room to categorize what his eyes are seeing. He doesn’t remember how he got there and he doesn’t know if he made a decision but ingrained memory leads his feet until he’s unlocking the door.

He’s standing in the exact place he stood the first time they met, and every time after. Dim light outlines the curve of his crossed arms and his habitual scowl deepens. Stiles ignores the ache in his chest that had been blooming since Jackson told him he was here and his first instinct is to stop breathing because maybe that’ll get the pounding of his pulse to shut the fuck up. He slips just far enough into the room to close the door. For all the man is the same, Stiles feels like an actor on stage in the wrong costume and no script to follow. He rakes a hand through his hair and rubs it on his pants after because aw shit, gross.

“Apologies for the wait, Mr. Hale,” his voice strains to stay smooth, a hollow imitation of the confidence he’s used to portraying.

When in this room he’s always been sure of his place, he could hold the man's attention and attraction easily in the right pair of black briefs. Now, in his baggy hoodie and scuffed sneakers, he curses himself. A shower would have allowed him time to present himself as the person he was used to meeting. It’s been awhile since he’s felt this young and stupid.

The Alpha steps towards him in languid steps until his chest is inches away.

“You haven’t been this messy since the first night.” Embarrassment heats Stiles’ cheeks and he’s dizzy with blood rush. “Will you be mine tonight?” The Alpha asks the way he always asks.

He hasn’t touched Stiles yet, nothing started that he can’t walk away from. It’s this freedom that keeps him tethered.

“Yes.”

The word is barely through his lips when a rough hand runs through his hair and holds the back of his head by the base of his neck. He looks at Derek’s stubbled jaw, his lips, the curve of his nose, the aggressive slant of his brow. His eyes.

“I’ve never seen you in so many layers,” Derek hums, taking his own look. “I’m not sure if I like it,” he says, but there’s a crease under his eyes and a pull to his lips and Stiles shoulders relax. 

There’s still desire there, somehow, and it allows Stiles to sink into something close to the role he’s used to playing. Stiles presses his head back and finds comfort in the familiar firmness of Derek’s hold.

He quirks his lips in a cheeky smile, “Let me see what I can do about that.”

His hoodie and plaid slide off easily, but the T-shirt stays because of the hand Derek refuses to release in his hair. Stiles’ eyes are glued to Derek’s, the familiarity of him enough to soothe Stiles’ nerves and hands into the practiced motion of taking off a belt. He’s just about to drop his pants when a flicker catches his eye.

Safety regulations demanded every room had a window big enough to exit through in an emergency. Given the nature of business, every window in the building had motorized blackout blinds to keep them sealed. Stiles never had reason to open them, but he could see in their second floor room they were level with a street lamp. It was flickering out to a slow death. Derek leans in closer.

“What is it?” He asks against the shell of his ear, “you're not usually this shy.”

“The blinds are open,” he murmurs, caught up in the heat of the strong body pressing against his own. 

He’s on the floor. Derek lands on top of him, his hand still cupping the back of Stiles’ head and softening its collision with the carpet, but there’s nothing to stop the weight of their fall pushing the air from his lungs.

“Stay here,” Derek growls into his ear and the heat of him is gone. 

Once his body solves its relationship with oxygen, Stiles does the exact opposite and rolls onto his hands and knees.

“What the hell-“ Rapid banging louder than life explodes throughout the walls. 

A heavy weight falls onto him and presses him back into the floor on his stomach. His vision is narrowed on one of Derek’s solid hands braced beside his face and the soft fibres of the carpet against his cheek. After the shock he places the sound as gunfire.

Time stretches obscenely and the attack continues, the room shredded with bullets. The noise cuts off as suddenly as it started. A ringing silence envelopes the room, his ears hyper aware of the harsh breathing uncomfortably close and his heartbeat in his chest and the crack chunks of plaster make as they fall and glass crumbles around him.

He feels the vibrating phone in Derek’s pocket and the weight of him shifts, but he stays with his body pressing Stiles into the floor.

“Who was it?” Derek says next to his ear.

The phone speaker is surreal, like a radio in a movie when a deep voice responds, “Dead. Third party got them before me. No traces. Headed back to you.”

The crushing weight above Stiles removes itself slowly. He rolls onto his back and scrambles to sit up next to where Derek is clutching his bloody bicep. Debris still hangs in the air, bits of luxury furniture flung around and glass shattered across the floor. It’s a lot to take in, but he can’t stop coming back to the sight of Derek’s blood.

“Holy son of a bitch,” He swears once he can speak and his feet start tripping towards the door. “We’ve got- I’ll get the kit.” 

The handle turns under his fingers and the door is yanked out of his grip, momentum bringing him to bump chests with Jackson.

“Fuckin’ move,” Jackson snarls but Derek’s voice stops them both in their tracks.

“Get the first aid kit.” Stiles feels Jackson’s glare, but Stiles is looking at Derek, who is looking at Jackson, and no one makes a move to leave. “Jackson!” Derek barks.

Jackson shoves Stiles back when he passes through the door and Stiles is moved easily, still in shock from how quickly things have happened. The empty door frame seems to hold his interest until he hears a grunt and looks over. The mob boss Alpha Hale sits on the edge of a prostitute's bed and holds a fresh bullet wound. Another piece of Stiles’ reality tears. It feels like he’s blinked since he was doing calculus homework with his dad downstairs. Hysteria threatens to clog his throat.

 

If he were to start at the beginning he’d talk about dishwashing, and to get there he’d have to go back to the death of a Sheriff, and before that he could mention a broken vase in a hospital. In the end, the beginning was a boy named Scott McCall.

One sticky peanut-butter sandwich in grade school and they were inseparable. Scott’s parents, on the other hand, weren’t. Online gaming made it easy to stay connected when Scott moved to the opposite coast with his father. Honestly, they probably spent more time talking through gaming than they would have naturally done if Scott had stayed.

The first tear in Stiles’ reality happened here. His mother had been dead for four years and things between the Stilinski men were still recovering, his dad took extra shifts and Stiles found sanctuary in the local library to avoid the empty house that waited for him. He’s jumped on his way home, barely three blocks from the library doors.

His status as a minor meant the hospital had shown his father the examination report. It meant he saw the photos. It meant they had to ask his permission for the rape kit. They never talked about it. His dad tried, but Stiles. Well, he was a shit and locked himself in his room with the headphones on and lived in a world where no one knew what had happened. Not even Scott.

When Scott suggested a bro-trip he jumped on it. Anything to get out of that house. Anything to talk to his dad about that wasn’t pressing charges and court appearances. Spring break of his sophomore year he spent goofing off with the guy he’d swear was his brother in another life. The day before he flew back home he caught a news channel playing inside a restaurant.

“I know her,” he’d blurted and stopped on the sidewalk beside Scott and his father, who’d been taking them out for lunch. 

Scott’s dad, no offence to Scott, gave Stiles the heebee jeebees. It wasn’t that he was mean or rude, it was more like his niceness felt like a mask.

“Oh?” Mr. McCall asked.

Stiles peered through the window at the TV, squinting to get a better look at the woman in the photo next to the headline ‘TARGETED SHOOTING: HALE’

“Yeah,” he mumbled, embarrassed by his outburst and the creepy attention Mr. McCall was giving him. “My mom was friends with her.”

He turned away from the TV and they resumed walking, his mind still whirring. The photos had been buried in a box he’d gone through during one of the first anniversaries of her death. It was hard to forget the woman’s face when there’d been hundreds of photos of the two of them, sometimes with a group of friends, mostly candid shots.

“I know where she’s staying,” Mr. McCall offered, “I won't be able to go, too busy this week, but if you’d like to visit I’ll give you the hospital address.”

Later that night he’d asked his dad about the woman, Talia Hale, but the response was pretty tight lipped.

“She introduced your mother and I,” his dad had said on the phone, “we had a falling out. I don’t know if it’s worth going to see her. I doubt she even remembers us.”

Most of them were bad angles and a decent percent of them blurred, but Stiles had recognized his father in more than a handful of the photos. He was smiling a lot. It had been an odd epiphany moment for him to realize his parents were people before he was born, that they’d had a full life he barely knew about. If his dad wasn’t going to talk about it then the only way to know more was to take Mr. McCall’s offer and write down the address.

And that’s how he found himself helplessly at gunpoint in a maternity ward with a comatose woman after running around with her madman son. He wasn’t an action hero, and he wasn’t cut out for that kind of crazy.

He forgot about it, for the most part, when he went back home. Not a word was said to his dad after the imitation speech he got by some bald guy Stiles was ninety-nine percent sure was actually a robot. He figures that’s why his dad was so tight lipped about it, and he’d had the right to be.

Life went on. Deputy Parrish started hanging out with the Stilinski men on the weekends, an odd addition that Stiles could see straight through. Obvious as he was, his dad knew what he was doing sometimes and the deputy’s presence made things easier. Stiles knew his dad wouldn’t bring up hard topics with a guest around so he finally felt comfortable enough to hang out like they used to, and setting three plates at the table felt right.

 

A shot to the neck got his father. An overwhelmingly grisly and painful death. Two weeks previous Stiles had turned 18. An adult, so the state declared. His dad was still working on the mortgage, the car was on a lease, and death turned out to be very expensive. The time between the funeral and his departure was a blur of grief and anger and horrible mistakes.

In a twist of fate he wasn’t the only one to lose his father that year. Mr. McCall went missing, only for his body to be found in a river. Morbidly it brought Stiles and Scott together. They both wanted fresh starts. By Christmas they decided on Los Angeles and get a place so small they could hold out their arms and touch a wall on either side. On their first night surrounded by a meagre collection of boxes Scott, dimple cheeked, puppy eyed, floppy haired Scott, dumped a bomb.

“I don’t work at the vet.”

“What?”

“Well, I do. But I just work there. I mean I sometimes work somewhere not there, and it’s not technically work but it is,” his breathing is whistley like right before an asthma attack, which hadn’t happened since they were this tall, and Stiles sits forward on the couch in case he has to do something like catch Scott’s body when he passes out from lack of oxygen. 

Scott gasps down enough to firmly say, “I told Deaton no more lies, not with you.”

“Okay?” Stiles says, still getting over the fact that there were lies to begin with, “What’s the other job that’s not a job but is?”

“The woman you visited at the hospital?” Stiles nods, body tensing with trepidation. “I work for her family.”

“As a pool boy or?” Stiles asks with an awkward laugh. 

But he remembers being sixteen and stupid and he thinks of the guns, the cat and mouse chase through hospital hallways, the men he’d attacked with a tray. He looks at Scott’s wide eyes. 

“Okay.” he said, waving at Scott. “Okay, tell me.”

“She runs this thing called the Pack.”

 

Scott was a gang member. A mobster. A hitman. Okay, maybe not the last one.

“We help people, Stiles,” Scott had insisted. “Kids in bad foster situations and stuff, we get them on their feet and find better places.”

So Scott was a superhero, when it came down to it. Stiles? Currently unemployed with no redeeming qualities. Scott spoke to his boss, who spoke to a guy, who spoke to his wife, and then Stiles was washing glasses at the classiest strip club he’d ever seen. Not that he’d seen many, or any, but he was pretty sure none of them looked like Jungle. Glossy black surfaces with glinting gold detailing and clean cut edges. It was run on a membership only basis, a mixed crowd of ages and genders in crisp tailored clothing and shiny black cards to match the space.

Stiles washed glasses every night, and the odd plate from the light desserts that got sent into rooms he wasn’t really supposed to know existed upstairs. Chocolate covered strawberries and whipped cream, you get the idea.

And now Stiles was here, watching Derek’s blood disappear on the black silk sheets.

People wanted to kill Derek. People had tried to kill him. He killed people. Dead. It was a lot to process when faced with the clear reality of what those words meant. He was in the middle of re-evaluating his life and place in the world when a mountain of a man stormed into the room, Jackson following behind him with the first aid kit.

“Perimeter is being double checked, so far clear.” The man said while Jackson put the kit down on the bed. 

Stiles first thought is army, what with the way the new guy holds the bulk of himself and the clear directness of his voice, but just the sight of Derek’s bleeding arm reminds him: gang. As formal and structured as it seems, this is a gang. Or Pack, or whatever they like to call themselves. Criminals, when it came down to it.

Stiles' eyes widen as Derek begins to aggressively cleanse the place where he’s missing a chunk of skin without flinching. It’s a graze, not a full hit, but it’s still a messy and raw gouge along his bicep.

“Jackson, start preparing to close for renovations beginning tomorrow. I’ll meet you in the office,” Derek orders in a tight collected voice. Jackson jerks out of the room, silent in a way Stiles has never witnessed before.

“You think it’s an inside job?” Not-Army man says.

“What gives you that impression?” Derek asks while now firmly placing a gauze bandage over the wound. 

Stiles winces for him.

“Really?” Not-Army man answers and Stiles is having trouble following along. 

Maybe he’s missed something. He can’t look away from where Derek is still dressing his wound.

“If they’re targeting me here I need to disappear. Contact will be hard to make and I can’t predict how long it will take to wait out. Step in as acting Alpha and tighten up until we know more." 

There a pause where no one moves and Stiles holds his breath in hopes that they won't notice him crouched by the wall until they leave. Derek is rolling down his bloody shirt sleeves and throws his suit jacket on. It doesn’t cover all of the blood, Stiles thinks numbly, but it’s only noticeable if you’re looking for it.

Finally the Not-Army man asks, “Where are you going?”

“Miami.” Derek's eyes find Stiles’ and he has to blink a few times to refocus on Derek’s face. “Maybe we can put a mirror in the ceiling.”

The set of Derek’s face is grim so it takes a moment for the words to register as a joke. Hysteria he’s been choking down bubbles out of him.

x

1988

“Your name is John Cusack?” She’s somewhere between laughing and kicking the guy out.

“Januszek,” the guy smiles patiently with her, the name rolling out of his mouth in a way she could never hope to imitate, “but you can call me John, Alpha Hale.”

It’s still odd hearing the title of her father. The man before her couldn’t be a year or two either way of her, she feels no where near old or experienced enough to deserve the right to order him. Her father had done so for three years, so the records say. The records being Alan and Ryan.

“All right, John it is.” 

She lays out the map her father had made and gestures to the markings.

“You may recognize this as our current neighbourhood here. Dad- the previous Alpha acquired these three buildings,” she points to the low rise cluster, “where we currently house the wayward and keep the peace. The new goal however,” she lays a piece of tracing paper over the map highlighting a majority of the structures within a ten block radius, “is to obtain these within the next five years.”

Beside her William lets out a low whistle.

“Financially it shouldn’t be an issue. What will cause problems is the attention it’ll bring the Pack. Technically it's our territory, but it’s common knowledge the Walker clan has been creeping in since our power shift. Everyone needs to be prepared for more eyes on us and the aggravation attempts” She looks to John, “You run the biggest group. Making the betas cool their heads and stay out of the public eye is of monumental importance.” 

He nods in understanding. The way he stands and meets her eyes reassures her he is a competent man, stable and reliable just as Ryan had implied when he’d spoken his opinion. She’s come to lean on him in lieu of her own brother.

Peter hasn’t made an appearance. He’d left with a snide “Seems you have it handled here,” and a slam of the door. 

It’s been months since the funeral and she’s used the time to plan and assess just what, exactly, her father left behind besides a large house and a huge mess. This marks her first un-official official Pack meeting. It includes her husband, his brother, a stranger, and a veterinarian. Overall, it goes well.

 

She’s just put Derek down in his crib a handful of nights later when there’s a knock on the back door. She stills to hear a scuffle of boots and grunts. On her way she grabs her gun and creeps down the stairs, checking the clip as quickly as she can. At the entrance way she runs into Alan looking impossibly displeased. Beside him is Ryan, slick with rain and his curls a matted mess on his forehead as he pants, out of breath. There is a body limp in Ryan’s arms.

“I need to hide her,” He begs while trying to hold the girl, “Please, Talia. Alpha, I need this.”

She looks over the girl with tight lips. If she had to guess she wouldn’t say more than a teenager. Ryan has a little boy and wife at home, she has Laura and Derek, and both Alan and Peter live in the house.

“Alan, call John.”

The man arrives shortly. He handles the girl with sure hands and a gentle touch that does more to relax Talia than the unconscious girl. He’s off again within the hour. When she asks about it later he says he found her a safe place hidden from anyone who was anyone while she recovered and they leave it at that.

 

As a gift to themselves she and William hire a nanny to babysit the kids for a day. A break for them both to let loose. Naturally William invites his best friend who coincidentally is his brother, who invites his best friend John, and Talia supposes her best friend would be Alan, who upon mutual unspoken agreement didn’t linger in times of leisure. A group of twenty somethings with nowhere to go and nothing immediately to do. They’re clustered in the office in a lazy slump where the sun pierces through the windows and warms the room.

“Hey princess,” she turns her head at the familiar name her brother-in-law nicked her with, “now that you’re the boss are you too cool to hang with the little people?”

Talia scoffs mockingly at his pout. General opinion saw Ryan as the classically attractive brother. She could see why they said that, he was older yet shorter by a couple inches with a sharp jawline and pale blue eyes, but William was the man who stole her heart. Besides, Ryan had a pleasant little blonde waiting for him at home.

“What is it you have in mind, dearest?” She asks dramatically, sprawling herself on the couch so her limbs tangled with his. 

William snorts at the display from the armrest while John lingers on the fringes by the bookshelves, Alan having disappeared when the maps were rolled out of the way for liquor.

“Come out with us tonight, Jan has a lead on a spot and I owe you.” 

There’s alcohol running through her veins and when she looks to her husband he shrugs.

“Okay,” she agrees easily and heaves herself to standing, “but you get to tell Alan we’re leaving the kids with him overnight.”

Ryan holds his hand out to shake on the deal, but she’s ready for the yank he gives her and returns the force with a pull twice as hard. He slides off of the leather cushions and slams into the hardwood floor.

“Holy fuck,” he groans and lifts himself up slowly. “Willy, remind me not to wrestle with your wife. She’s a monster.”

Her husband smirks from the comfortable seat he’s in. “Oh, I’m well aware.”

He gets a pillow in the face for it.

 

They find themselves in a manor, the residents away on a no doubt lavish vacation. Ryan finds a way to cut the fancy new security camera feed and John is nimble enough to get in without damaging the place.

“Not that they can’t afford it,” he mumbles. 

Adrenaline runs high in Talia’s system and she giggles with William’s hand in hers as they race through the dark halls and slide in their socks. It feels like when they first started dating in high school, getting up to shenanigans and thinking themselves modern Robin Hoods.

They take the obvious pieces, jewellery and cash blatantly hidden in frames and sock drawers. Spare watches not needed on a beach.

“Talia! Come look!” Ryan’s voice echoes throughout the vaulted ceilings. 

She and William tumble into the room to find him hugging a large pillar wrapped in plastic.

“We’re taking it!”

“No.” The couple say in unison.

“It’ll be perfect. Come on, help me get it in the car.” They make no move to help him. “Januszeck! Jan! Help me! They don’t believe in my dream!” His cries echo through the empty halls. 

In the end it takes them all a sweaty and curse filled half hour to get it into the car. They drive off with it precariously sticking out of the Volvo's back hatch.

“If we get pulled over because of this stupid rug I will murder you myself.” Talia says from her perch on Williams lap in the front seat. 

Ryan grins from where he’s squished in the back.

“Just you wait, princess.” 

John drives the speed limit with both hands on the wheel the entire way.

 

More cursing and sweating happens in the office as they all lift the furniture and break out into momentary pillow and tickle fights and sip at the bottles they left half finished until finally the rug is completely rolled out. From where they lay on it in silence, with their heads lined up below the window, they watch the purple haze of pre-dawn seep into the sky and the ceiling grows brighter above them. The desk will have to be brought back into place at some point, but not just yet.

“The girl woke up,” John says off-handedly.

Talia hums.

“What’s her name?” William asks in a whisper.

Ryan and John answer in tandem.

“Claudia.”

x

2014

Sweat rolls down the back of his neck and soaks into a cotton collar that sticks to his skin and tightens around his throat with every breath of air. It’s so humid he feels on the brink of drowning. Between his brows is an ache from squinting at the aggressive sun beating down on the private patio, despite the sunglasses collecting moisture on the bridge of his nose.

“I’ve no interest in pissing you off, Derek.” Deucalion says with a smirk that pisses him off.

Words have been exchanged between them long enough for his shirt to wilt and crease and yet nothing has truly been said. Not for the first time he wishes it were Kali next to him. Her methods of communicating may be intrusive and left his skin crawling, but unlike her partner she lacked the patience to run people in circles. Derek simmers in his pool of sweat, knowing that his own patience will be rewarded if he can suffer through the obnoxious sounds of Deucalion sipping generously on his drink. He sets down the glass with a flourish.

“My new focus lies in the South, you know I like it hot.” Deucalion grins lewdly beneath his aviators. “Speaking of, you should be looking at that cousin of yours.” Derek’s brow creases further.

“And what would I be looking for?”

“Grapevine says he’s been running amok.”

Derek grunts at the condescending tone, yet he can’t dispel the unease the words cause in him. Camden’s death had been easily overlooked for the shitstorm that had followed. It wasn’t until the first anniversary of his death that Derek had questioned Isaac’s welfare. Even still, it hadn’t been until Danny had approached him that he’d located him. There was too much time he couldn’t account for what Isaac had been doing and more over, who he’d been talking to, for him to completely shrug off Duke’s comments. He knew Duke had said it to unsettle him and it bothered Derek to know by the smug smile on his face that Duke it had could tell it had worked.

“You’ve got a head on your shoulders, but some advice, Derek?” Duke stands from his chair and pauses to finish the last of his drink before speaking down to Derek. “The best defence is offence.”

He walks away with light feet and disappears inside the beachside mansion. Derek swallows half of his drink in one go. It’s melting in the heat and sweating just as much as him. His face pinches at the sour taste.

 

He sits freshly showered in a new suit on an airplane and can’t help the longing that settles in his ribcage. It was the skin, at first, that caught his attention. So familiar, so similar to hers. He’d seen it from the corner of his eye after a rough day and he’d wanted to pretend for a night, just one night. He hadn’t counted on the talking. And boy, did he talk. There could be no pretending when a constant stream of words poured out of the pouting pink mouth, thinking, wondering, begging. It was never ending, and it pulled Derek out of any memories that tried to take over and sharply into the present, his voice like an anchor to the current moment.

He’s given it a year. It’s been a year since the first night and he knows, now, that he is perfectly screwed. Because the boy doesn’t remind him of Page, never really did past the first flash of skin. The boy reminds him of home. Derek shifts in his seat. For the first time since his mother died there is something he wants and he doesn’t know how to keep it.

 

Hours later he stands on a crumbling doorstep in Brooklyn during the hazy hours that separate night and day, when the whole world holds its breath and ceases to exist. Isaac answers the door and immediately Derek crowds him into the entranceway. A quick flick of his fingers against the switch casts them back into darkness. The door closes behind him. Isaac is smart enough to stay in the box of the doorway with him, chest to chest. The feeble glow of street lamps through the waved panes of the door puts them in dim silhouette, enough to make out a hand in front of his face but not it’s colour.

“It was Duke.”

“Fuck.”

Their voices barely travel over the rustle of their clothes as they settle.

“Cooperate with the Wolfe’s, it’ll put them off guard and easier to strike.” Derek can’t make out a single feature on Isaac’s face, but the weight of him shifts closer and Derek can feel how, for once, the extra two inches of hunched height is being put to use.

“Fine,” he says in a way that informs Derek it was not fine, “but know what you’re asking. These are the type of play-mates that like to share toys.”

Derek inhales slowly through his nose. Not fine, indeed.

“It won't be for long.” He says and it rings out like an empty promise.

Less than three minutes have passed and he’s back on the stoop, the door shut firmly behind him. He’s been on the ground for the exact amount of time it took to drive to this spot from the airport. Too long.x

Working at Jungle allowed Stiles to discover things about himself. Number one? Sexuality was a spectrum. Definitely. This was made clear when meeting the other staff members on the floor. His first introduction ended in a heavy makeout session.

“Not bad for a newbie,” the man said with a wink and a charming smile that left no question in Stiles’ mind about preferences. Stiles dedicates himself to getting better. The dickwad of a manager Jackson aside, a surprising amount of his coworkers help him out with that.

Then he meets Jackson’s wife, which leads to point two: Lydia Whittemore is a goddess. Someday she will probably cut his balls off, but he’ll let her. Three? He can dance. Not well, mind you, but good enough so they say. They being Lydia.

Lydia shows him how to roll his body and sway his hips in lessons he will cherish the memories of for the rest of time. The day before he goes on the floor she reminds him of the real reason he took the upgrade from dishwasher to dancer.

“You’re not here to have a good time,” Lydia said, “You’re eyes, ears, and whatever we need you to be. These aren’t all good people, Stiles. Anything we can use, we take it.”

They call him Spark after the dish soap ‘Sparkle’ in the kitchen. Thank fuck they didn’t use Crystal Clean. Barely a week working on the floor Jackson pulled him aside.

“What did you do?” He demanded.

“Hey jerk-off, how about you use your words. I’ve been on the floor all night, if that’s what yo-”

Jackson shoved him, “Shut up,” he snapped, “The Alpha asked for you upstairs. Why would he do that?”

“What?” Stiles said dumbly, computing. It was like trying to read Russian, where all the letters look the same but sound wrong. They were words he knew, but in a combination that shouldn’t exist. Jackson grabbed his arm and tugged them through the dark space.

“The Alpha doesn’t fuck any of the staff here, so either you’re in deep shit which means I’m in deep shit, or he’s not wearing his contacts.” 

Stiles struggled out of his hold, but the shock kept him pliable enough to be hustled towards the hidden door to the stairway.

“Woah,” he said as their footsteps echoed up the stairs and his mind caught up enough to be offended, “I do believe it was you who said I should wear these briefs because, and I quote-”

“Spark,” Jackson bit out and that was hilarious. 

Protocol heavily outlines real names were not to be used on premise for any and all staff members, most of which Stiles didn’t even know by anything other than a moniker. Stiles personally had fun with this rule when it came to Jackson, whose real name he knew from overhearing Lydia bitching on the phone. To hear the guy clearly pissed off and having to use the ridiculous name made Stiles choke on a laugh behind his back. 

“I told him you were new, but he insisted. Don’t fuck it up.”

They’d reached a far door in the hall on the end opposite the dressing rooms and the office. Stiles hadn’t used one of the rooms yet. He tugged at the tight black briefs and pushed his hair back off of his forehead. It was late in the night and he was flush with sweat from the heat of the floor downstairs. He closed his eyes, pushed the nagging thought of his somewhat virginity out of his mind, and thought of Lydia being on the other side of the door. Naked. 

He’d known when taking the upgrade that sex was inevitable, and he was okay with that because this was on his terms and he trusted the club to have his back, he just hadn’t expected his first client to be the motherfucking Alpha. He could hear the door unlock and open telling him it was game time. One last bounce on his heels for good luck and he entered with the same sure steps he used when walking downstairs.

The urge to choke was strong at the sight of the man standing in front of him. Somewhere a part of him knew the woman in the hospital several years ago had been Alpha, and he’d heard of her death since. Yet it never connected that the man who’d also been at the hospital, her son, Derek Hale, would now be the reigning Alpha.

 

Derek never gave a reason as to why he chose Stiles that night. If he guessed he would say it was something to do with the scattering of moles across his skin. Every time since the first night, after a few rounds both rough and slow in turn, Stiles would lay on his stomach in a sleepy haze to gain control of his breathing. Derek’s finger tips would wander along lines between the moles like a connect the dot game. Sometimes, when they were both tired, he would trace them with his lips.

It was work. He knew the man probably had a girl, maybe even a wife, and Stiles was the bit on the side. A dose of pleasure in the moment and not much more. It was fine. He never told Derek he’d bought his virginity and Derek never told him to shut up when he rambled between rounds. Derek’s visits were scattered, sometimes clumped together in a period of weeks and other times separated by months of absence. 

He was never called to a room with another guest, not for lack of offers so he was told, but Jackson stepped in every time a client suggested getting more intimate. It had been frustrating until he’d realized what it meant. Derek didn’t like sharing.

His print was added to the security database so he could use it to open the door to the private room saved for their exclusive use. Nights they spent together were ecstasy filled dreams compared to the hours Stiles spent dancing and mingling on the floor, and despite himself he was growing fond of the man. Derek didn’t talk much, but moments of his biting humour and surprising playfulness that he rarely got to see were like gems Stiles hoarded in the vaults of his mind. Every time he woke to empty silk sheets he reminded himself it was still work.

 

There’s a knock at his apartment door. It’s been almost a year since he got the place all to himself and not a single person had knocked on his door. Scott moved to the east coast and still has a key, deliveries go to a PO Box because he doesn’t trust his neighbours, and both his parents are dead. It’s five o’clock in the morning and someone is knocking on his door.

He didn’t work tonight, it was Tuesday, too slow for someone as valuable as him to waste his energy on it. Regardless, he had to keep up the nocturnal schedule of Batman if he didn’t want to be fucked when he went back on shift, so he was in the middle of a Netflix binge in his old high school lacrosse shirt and sweatpants trying not to flinch at the sound of gun shots on the TV and there was some fucking person knocking on his door.

Stiles doesn’t own a gun, but he does have a baseball bat residing next to his bed and he grabs it on his way. It slips from his grip when he sees the face on the other side.

“Derek?” 

He glances down the building’s hall behind him. The last time he’d seen him had included bullets so he feels justified in his caution. The man stands motionless under the gross hallway lights and Stiles mouth works as he tries to say something. 

“I mean Alpha, uh,” he swallows thickly. Scott never mentioned what to do when something like this happened. Is there a protocol for this? His existence with the Pack began and ended at the doors of Jungle, outside of which he had no idea how to act. “I mean, what uhm, what can I do for you?”

He looks at the guys face but it’s a wall without emotion and Stiles can’t guess in the slightest what has brought him unless he’s here to murder him and maybe you’re not supposed to look gang leaders in the eye when you’re not fucking them so he looks back down to his feet but that doesn’t help because all he sees are his socks so thin they’ve got holes next to thick black boots. Murder boots. He blinks and looks back at Derek’s face, but Derek moves his glare down the hallway when they almost make eye contact so all Stiles can do is watch the muscles of Derek’s side profile as he grinds his jaw.

“I don’t know how to say your first name,” Derek says to the hallway.

Stiles blinks.

“No one does,” he says wearily, thinking it might be a test, “I don’t use it.” 

Derek looks back and takes him in, his eyes pause on the jersey numbers and his rats nest of hair and they land on his face. Stiles really wishes he’d put on deodorant today and maybe shaved too. Derek’s brows crease further and Stiles hesitates. There are rules for a reason. Reasons like not letting your clients find out where you live and stalk you. But this is not a client, it’s the boss, and he’s already on his doorstep.

“Stiles,” he says and leans back against the door to keep from putting his hand out. 

He’s spent the last year fucking the guy, they’re well beyond a handshake.

“Stiles,” Derek repeats then takes a deep breath and Stiles is worried. Any time they’ve been together Derek’s been calm, in control, at ease. Now he looks, well he looks a bit like shit. “May I come in?”

Stiles fumbles backwards and pushes his door open without turning his back, letting the man squeeze past him in the narrow doorway. The apartment is cast in a dim purple glow from mornings earliest light seeping in the window. In the recess of the kitchen the two of them are hazed in grey shadow. Stiles gets himself a glass of water to keep his hands busy and eyes low. He’s so focussed on the task that when he turns back around he jumps and spits a few drops of water out, surprised to find a chest against his.

Stiles studiously looks at the buttons on the shirt collar inches away. He presses the glass forwards in a silent question. A pause. Derek takes it from his hands slowly, takes a sip, and sets the glass down with a tink as it hits the counter. His palm is sudden and warm when it meets Stiles’ neck and cups his head in a familiar way. Stiles looks up at him. It’s odd. Because at Jungle they are Spark and Alpha Hale and here they are Stiles and Derek. But his hands. The feeling of his hands on his skin is the same.

“Why do you work at Jungle?”

“Because I need the money,” Stiles blurts honestly, “and I’m good at it.”

“What if there was something else? Would you stay there?”

“Yes,” Stiles says without having to think about it, but he’s narrowed his eyes. 

What’s he trying to get at? It doesn’t feel like a threat or question of loyalty, but even without being a sworn member Stiles would never turn on the Pack. He believes in the work they do, what little he knows of it, and despite his past he chose his job of his own free will. Perhaps it wasn’t what his father had in mind, but he’d been raised believing in loyalty and he’d stand by the choice he’d made.

Derek pulls away. He rests on the counter behind him. They stand in silence a foot apart and Stiles tries to understand why it suddenly feels like a cavern is growing between their feet and Derek wont look at him again.

“Well that’s that then,” Derek mutters. He turns his back and takes a few steps away.

Stiles’ mind spins like an overheating fan. His hand shoots out to grab an arm. Derek jerks at the touch and flips around with a menacing set to his shoulders and fists curled. Stiles steps back, shied from the anger he’s so rarely witnessed before. His heart is beating in his throat. He feels like something's happening and he can’t understand what it is or why it’s so important, but the racing of his blood tells him it is. It feels like standing on the edge of a cliff and realising for the first time he’s scared of heights.

“For you,” he jumps off the cliff, “I’d stay because working there is the only way I get to keep you.” 

He closes his eyes as he says it and his whole body tenses in a brace for impact. It comes in the form of a gentle hand against his face. He doesn’t move. Even when he feels the heat of Derek against his chest and the ebb and flow of his ribs against his own. Something’s been set off in Stiles. His muscles feel locked and his eyes grow hot.

“I have a flight tomorrow morning,” Derek says in a low rumble against Stiles’ lips. “When I come back the only body under your hands is mine.”

Stiles’ eyelashes stick together when he blinks until he can see Derek’s face, hazily outlined by the hues of dawn. He looks and looks until he can see past the stern set of Derek’s brow and finds the slightest hesitation in his eyes. This is not the cold and distant Alpha of the Hale Pack that he’d thought had shown up on his doorstep.

It’s Derek Hale. The guy who told a stranger to hide and stay safe. The man who asks before touching, every single time. Stiles knows if he said no right now Derek would leave, so he doesn’t. He lets his eyelids slide shut and tilts his head to find Derek’s cheek against his. Ever so slowly he finds Derek’s lips with his own. Dry lips on dry lips, the kiss is slow and tame and ends as softly as it started. It feels like a handshake.

Stiles keeps his forehead pressed to Derek’s.

“Stay?”

Derek kisses him harder.

 

Stiles rolls over with heavy limbs. Every muscle feels liquid and his brain for once is quiet, consciousness barely hanging on. He palms the bedside table in search of his phone so he can set an alarm before his shift. He picks it up and rests it on the pillow, his face half buried with one eye peering open just enough to see the screen light up. Two things register. This is not his phone. The blurry photo of Scott passed out with a sharpie mustache is missing, a default lock screen in its place. There is a new email alert. The preview reads:

Re: Fairmont Miami  
‘Thank You for your stay Mr. Gajos. Your loyalty is valued…’

A bell goes off in Stiles’ head. It’s a common enough name, in the top ten list for sure. But who picks the Polish list? No one ever picks the Polish. He puts the phone back on the bedside table and can physically feel the way his heart rate rises the longer he sees the name in his mind.

“Derek?” 

He rolls over so his nose is pressed against the shoulder of the dozing man in bed next to him. He gets a hum in response, Derek’s limbs heavy and soft with sleep and Stiles tries, he really does, to keep his voice low and even and normal and not full of the panic running in his veins. 

“Why would you use the name Gajos?”

Derek freezes next to him.

“Why would you know I use that name?” Derek counters, his eyes slit open narrowly at Stiles and he can feel it, the very fine edge he is walking on. One wrong step and-

“Because I accidentally picked up your phone and saw an email from your hotel,” he says in one breath praying honesty is the way to go, “you really shouldn’t have the text previews on considering who you are. Anyone could pick that up and see all sorts of things.”

Derek’s stomach deflates in one big sigh, his body relaxing but not to the point it had been before. Stiles thinks he could make that happen, though, given another ten minutes and a different use of his tongue.

“It’s an old alias, I didn’t pick it out. Took awhile to even know how to pronounce it.” 

Stiles’ mind keeps whirring, fired up from the very real adrenaline rush Derek’s look of death had given him.

“Your mother chose it?” 

He can feel Derek shift below him to look at him better.

“Yes, she did.” He states. 

Stiles meets his eyes but stays where he is, still connecting dots as he lays pressed against the warmth of Derek’s body.

“It’s my mother's maiden name. They were friends, I think.” 

He can still remember the box full of pictures. Grinning sideways, hugging and hanging off of each other as they were caught mid laugh. They look like photos Stiles has of him and Scott.

“What was she like?” Derek asks. Stiles’ gaze has drifted in thought, he looks back at Derek. “Your mother, what was she like?”

Stiles’ starts the way he always does when asked about her, the same way his dad always tells it.

“She had these great brown eyes. Beautiful. When she laughed you saw the sun.”

x

The first ring of the phone is cut short. He answers it with eyes still closed and one ear pressed against the pillow.

“Go.”

“Little birdy told me something,” a woman purrs, “bet you want to know what it is.” Jackson squeezes his eyes harder in hopes when he opens them he’ll be dreaming. Instead he sees the empty master bedroom of his penthouse suit.

“The point?”

“That golden boy of yours is going to meet with the twins. What do you know of that?” 

Jackson grunts, it’s news to him.

“Seeing as how I’m across the entire country I know very little of what he’s doing.” 

The woman coos mockingly, “that’s not playing very nicely, Jackson. After the sweet present we gave to you.”

Jackson pushes himself up in the bed.

“A fortune in damage and lost sales is no present.” 

Business had only just begun as normal for the first time in three weeks since the shooting, causing him a literal headache to accommodate their high clientele demand. 

“When I requested an inconvenience I didn’t mean shoot up my club,” He growls. “We’re finished, Kali.”

He hangs up on her laughter.

x

Los Angeles is a big place. Regardless, he’s trying.

The bar was nothing to note. Nowhere close to seedy and not especially classy. A place middle class people came with coworkers or for a casual drink with friends on weekends. It was a mix of polyester suits and dark blue jeans. Jordan had contacted old friends from the academy, and even highschool, to find out as much as he could. One name he heard repeatedly: Hale. Supposedly the owner of the bar and a dozen more throughout the city. Jordan’s already been to seven.

He’s sitting at a table with two coasters in front of him and checks his watch periodically like he’s waiting for someone to join him. His mind isn’t on the clock, it’s listening to the patrons, watching the staff, noting the patterns. He’s got nothing. Five weeks in the city and he can’t get a single trace on the Hale guy or Stiles for that matter. 

He’s running out of vacation days and excuses not to be at work. Unenthusiastically he swallows the last of his lukewarm pint. Just as he’s counting his tip onto the table two men enter. Warning bells ring in Jordans ears. The steps are too purposeful and they streamline to a kid leaning on the bar.

“Alpha says hello,”

Instinct causes Jordan to move at the sight of a hand raising. He collides with the man and two guns go off. He takes an elbow to the ribs in the scuffle and narrowly misses a swipe from the butt of the gun when he tries to keep the guy down.

“Police, call the police!” He yells to the onlookers while patrons flee. “Citizens arrest for attempted murder. Anything you say-” He continues on autopilot in a straining voice while he subdues the guy with a choke hold. 

The tell-tale pops of more gunshots outside produce a wave of shrieking from the public and the squeal of tires. Finally the man in his arms passes out and Jordan scrambles inelegantly to the bar. One of the thugs lays flat on his back with a shot through his head. Jordan wastes no time on him and focuses on the hunched figure clutching a gut wound. He lowers the young man quickly to the floor and applies pressure to the wound in his stomach.

The man, a boy still honest to god, is conscious and his mouth is clear of blood, good signs so far. Through the shock he struggles to say something.

“Danny,” he gasps to Jordan with unfocused eyes skittering around in search of the door, “Fuckin’ shit, Danny, outside.”

Jordan holds him in place when the kid tries to get up and looks to the staff crowded by kitchen doors.

“You,” He gestures to the one with the most composure, “Come here, press as hard as you can. Don’t let him move and don’t let go until the paramedics arrive.” 

He shows her where to hold and leaves as soon as he’s confident she’s not going to let the kid bleed to death.

No one stops him when he runs out of the bar covered in blood. Outside is a scene worse than the one he’s left. A body lays on the ground, a man not much older than himself. At first glance it doesn’t look too bad, but then Jordan’s pushed his way closer and sees the back of the man's head is cracked open from it’s collision with the ground and shows an obscene amount of scarlet blood and brain matter. His eyes are vacant.

Sirens wail in the background.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a huge fan of my exposition in this piece. I had so much back story and my mind doesn't work very linearly so I keep bouncing around in tense and times and I really apologize if it's too hard to keep track. Please inform me if you can make sense of it or if I need to rework it.  
> Cheers :)


	6. Of Sparrows and Broken Wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When friends turn into traitors and enemies become friends, Alpha Hale must rule from a distance in order to keep the knives out of his back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side note: I was at a street festival and discovered this artist Reid Jamieson and his music is so nice for walking in the trees and on rainy days! Check him out on Spotify etc. :) 
> 
> Side note No2: The town of Paradise doesn't actually exist anymore because the fires last year destroyed it, as in wiped it completely off of the earth. I have always used it as my IRL Beacon Hills and my thoughts go out to everyone who is dealing with the aftermath of displacement. 
> 
>  
> 
> Remember to watch those year jumps!  
> Even in the past we have gone from 1988 to 1990 and will continue beyond!

2014

Boyd does not enjoy his job. Frequent flights, long hours, and constant on call status. Despite this, not once has he thought of looking for a different line of work. The loyalty running thick in his veins replaces blood that would have gone cold long ago if not for Talia Hale. Derek’s getting there, earning Boyd’s trust and respect in spades as he grows into a fair and just leader. Their shared time has developed a great mutual bond that Boyd finds comforting after the mayhem of their shared experiences. Though he’s proud to see how well this venture of Derek’s is working out, stepping foot into Jungle always sours his mood.

His shoes strike the glossed marble of the second floor hallway, not a single mark to show for the chaos of the past. It had been easy to entice the Senator with offers of a free night to soothe over any ill feelings, just a token of gratitude for keeping his mouth shut. Jackson had detained him with the knowledge of his new starring role in an incriminating little video, but he’d warned Boyd that there had been a small complication. Boyd steps into a room halfway down and surveys the scene.

Senator Harris’ suit jacket flares out behind his hands on his hips in a mock stance of power, but his shoulders are hunched. The room is a mess. Sheets are half torn off of the mattress and a bedside table and lounge chairs have been knocked to their sides. It seems the man was a less than gentle lover.

“Did you have fun?” Boyd asks. Harris, sweat damp hair and puffy bloodshot eyes, spits into the carpet at his feet.

“What? No longer good enough to speak to the Alpha?”

“I am the Alpha today, and right now you’re in my territory.” Boyd crosses his arms in the doorway. “I think now is the time you listen to what’s going to happen.” 

Red faced, the Senator opens his mouth. Boyds uses a heavy hand on his chest to easily roll Harris backwards until his shoulders knock into the wall, wiping the sneer off of his face. 

“You’re going to keep that fat mouth of yours shut, we do the same. You go back to work, we go back to business. One day we contact you for a favour, you do it. Simple.” 

Boyd removes his grip on the wrinkled shirt and holds out his palm. The Senator looks at it with crazed eyes and his limbs vibrate with the tension in the air.

“Shake to our friendship, Senator.”

The hand is clammy and hot during the most revolting handshake Boyd has ever had to make. The Senator pushes his shoulder past Boyd and storms out of the room without a second to spare. When Boyd turns around he catches sight of a detail he’d missed. Blood on the sheets. Little pools of it scattered across a canvas of linen.

“This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.” 

Bile gathers in the back of his throat the longer he takes in the scratched nail marks on the headboard.

“Yeah, us either.” Jackson grudgingly admits with his arms crossed. “Bastard was smarter than we thought. Couldn’t see how bad it was from the cams and his hands were tied before he could push a panic button.”

“He?” There’s a pregnant pause. Several men were employed by Jungle, but only one would make Jackson avoid his eyes. 

“Fuck.” He says with feeling.

 

Boyd drives three towns over and calls Derek from a burner with shitty reception.

“There’s a home video waiting for you. How’s the birthday party?” He sits in the driver's seat of his vehicle.

“Great, but the guest of honour didn’t miss my empty hands.”

Boyd stares flatly ahead, unimpressed with the news. “What’s on his wish list?”

“A couple of monkeys and a handshake.” Boyd curses. He considers the grocery list of bad news he has to tell and decides on the most pressing.

“One of the puppies had an accident.”

“Oh?”

“Someone tried to snatch the Golden retriever. The pound took him in.” 

They let it hang in silence for a while. He checks his mirrors out of habit and a deserted parking lot stares back at him from all angles. Everything else should wait. As he minutely tweaks the rear view mirror he makes a mental note to catch Jackson before his departure and inform him to keep his mouth shut. Messages of love and death should be saved for face to face.

“How’s the North? I’ve never been to Canada.”

Derek huffs. “The seasons are harsher but the people are milder.”

They hang up shortly after. Harris thought his friendship cost him, but Deucalion was asking two million dollars for his.

x

Canada was the alternate universe of America. You forgot you’d left the country until you ran into someone with an accent odder than Minnesota's holding a Tim Hortons cup.

“Good job, Jackson.” Are the first words he hears when he meets Derek under the maple flag on a gravel path by the sea. 

The Alpha has been unreachable for months and, despite Boyds leadership in the interim, it is both calming and stressing to be in the presence of his proper boss.

“I heard about Harris. I trust there was no interruption to business?”

Jackson think’s of Stiles’ wide eyes when they finally got to him. He’d locked himself into a toilet stall after. Morale had been low when the other staff heard him dry heaving.

“Business as usual.” He shrugs and slides the backpack straps around on his shoulders. 

It’s tedious to carry the weight on his back and if he didn’t look like a tourist before picking the payload up, he sure as shit does now. Still, he can understand its ease of use for its purpose.

“We meet Duke and his cougar of a right hand tonight,” Derek says and gestures with the hand holding his open umbrella towards their destination, the harbour. They fall into step together. “Have you dealt with them before?”

“No,” Jackson shrugs but it’s lost under the layers of rain gear and the bag. “Your mother never spoke about them while I was around. Granted, I wasn’t usually around.” He quips sharply, thinking of where exactly he had been. Who he’d been with.

“It was Duke who shot up Jungle.”

Jackson startles and his eyes fly to Derek, but the man is facing forward and Jackson prays to a god he doesn’t believe in that he didn’t see it. His mind races. Derek shouldn’t know where the hit came from. Kali had sworn whatever they did and whoever they hired would be untraceable. Jackson had shot the bastards himself so there’d be no loose ends to follow. Or so he’d thought. The rain falls heavier and causes them both to squint and peer at the grey landscape.

“He’ll try again, soon. One of us won’t be seeing the New Year.”

Jackson tries to swallow and chokes a bit, so he turns his head and hides behind the hood. His fingers twist in the backpack straps. If he was a smarter man he wouldn’t be uncertain about who Derek is talking about. Gravel crunches under their feet as they continue forward.

 

He sits beside Derek in a dockside restaurant. It’s windy as fuck on the water and boats sway uneasily in the marina. Despite the miserable rain pouring against the fogged windows the room is pleasantly heated, but the warmth does nothing to ease him. The flight and walk have left Jackson’s muscles uncomfortably crampy and dehydrated. The beginning of a migraine is starting to ring in his mind.

“Who gave the order on Isaac Lahey?” Derek says, cutting to the point.

Deucalion’s laugh is scarily hollow.

“I imagine the same man who threw Rafael McCall in the river.” 

Jackson tries not to react to the insinuation. McCall disappeared years ago during the same week as Peter. As far as Jackson knew his brat was running around with the new kids and Dan-

He ducks his head to swallow on a dry throat.

Due to the timing and general chaos of those weeks, Jackson had assumed the person responsible for Rafael’s drowning had also caused the crash Peter burned in. If it had been Derek, well there was only one motivator strong enough to pit him against his uncle, and it meant Jackson had been right in his suspicions of Laura’s death. 

His hands fist around the meat of his thighs. The pounding of rain on the windows consumes his mind like stampeding elephants until he closes his eyes in an effort to block it out.

Does Derek think he knew? Does he think- God damnit, he must think Jackson had a part in it, or at the very least had withheld the information. That’s why he’s kept him in California. After everything he’s done for the Pack, after the years spent shadowing Peter to learn the inner workings of a right-hand man, he’d never understood why Derek kept him in California at arm's length from everything. But now. Now Derek killed Peter, and Jackson might have been breathing for the last thirty years but he’s been caged in purgatory for the majority of the last decade.

His fingers itch to pull out his phone and call Danny. He wants to know what he should do, wants to hear about what an idiot he’s been, but he can’t because Danny’s- and Derek doesn’t know because of cocksucking Boyd who took Jackson’s rightful-fucking-place. His fingers dig deeper until he can feel his nails through the fabric of his pants.

“Jackson,” Derek’s voice calls and he lifts his head in a painful snap back to reality. “You’ve been to Vancouver before, why don’t you take the guests for a trip around the city.”

“A grand idea,” Deucalion adds and they both look to him. “Kali would love to meet you.” 

Jackson looks at Derek blankly like a sheep waiting to be slaughtered.

Derek nods and gives a tight lipped grimace, “We’ll join you shortly.”

He leaves the heavy backpack below his chair, but as he walks away his skin breaks out into a sweat with the weight he feels pressing down on him.

 

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

He drinks too much. He wants to punch someone. Wants to beat on soft flesh and tear at it until his fingers sink into the pulp of tendon and muscle. If he’d stayed at the table of associates he was meant to be entertaining he would have made it happen. His smile had become a baring of teeth. Now he sits, destroying the inside of his cheek with his own teeth and nodding to the man behind the bar for another. Tom Collins, Danny’s favourite. He’ll switch to water soon. He will.

“There you are,” light fingertips run up his spine and his hand tightens dangerously around the glass his fingers have just met. He swallows its liquid whole. To hell with it. “As riveting as the table talk is, I was hoping to have a word with you, naughty boy.”

He keeps his gaze on the dull wood of the bar top. No doubt Harris and the men at the table are glaring daggers at him, upset the best of their charms hadn’t been enough to capture the feral woman. He would laugh at the thought if he hadn’t felt her eyes on him all night long. Gaining her attention had nothing to do with charm, and as far as he’s concerned they can have the bitch. He has nothing to say to her. 

He looks up for the bartender, itching for another drink in his hands if only for the distraction it would bring, and he catches a glint in the mirrored wall behind the liquor shelves. In the red tinted glass between bottles of hard liquor Jackson watches the door open behind him. Derek.

“Keep hoping,” he spits out and shoves himself away from the bartop and out of her reach. 

His path is possibly not as straight as it could be. Sheer force of will allows him to fake his certainty in the ground beneath his feet. The last thing he needs in current company is to fucking stumble.

He meets Derek left shoulder to left shoulder on their opposite ways.

“Had enough, Jax?” Derek jokes, but Jackson is a bad sort of restless and frayed nerve endings are sparking too close to the liquor in his belly.

“She’s a fuckin’ cunt in person. I gotta take a breather,” he shakes his head to clear it but the room spins. “Won’t be coming back unless you want me here.”

Derek doesn’t answer right away, maybe thinking about it or maybe just enjoying how drunk he is, Jackson doesn’t give a shit, he just wants to leave and shower the day off and call the last and only person he should.

“Go. Sleep it off. I’ll see you at the hotel.”

And thank fuck for that. Jackson shuts himself into the car and groans with his hands over his eyes. Fumbling he slides his phone out of his pocket and squints at the horridly bright screen to find Lydia’s number.

x

Life is not complicated.

You love your mother, you love your best friend, and you love your job.

You were seven when you saved a bird from the neighbours cat and watched it fly away. You’ve known since that moment you were made to help the helpless. Veterinary degrees cost a fortune, but assistant programmes require nothing more than the high school diploma you earned by the skin of your teeth and the big heart your mother gave you. And maybe your dad makes a phone call.

Your boss is weird. His hours are irregular and inconsistent and he’s hard to track down, but the other staff train you well so you stopped minding his absence a few weeks in. On a Friday he takes you on a house call that ends up being a run down apartment in the shitty area of town. There’s no animal in sight. 

You spend the day watching and learning how to give a very different type of care to the families of the block. He takes you to a different apartment complex the next friday, and the friday after that. Instead of flea checks and neutering you start handling hair lice and giving out condoms to kids you think are too young. It’s so far from enough but it’s all you can do. So you grin and bare it, and for eight months you show up to the vets office bright and early.

It’s not complicated.

Your father goes missing on a Wednesday. You move across the country to live with your newly orphaned best friend. Your boss handles the details of your work transfer to a new veterinary clinic. Dr. Deaton gives you a list of addresses and the number for someone named Danny. You like Danny. He’s funny and he’s good with the patients and every Friday you are comforted knowing that he is never out of ear shot. Sometimes Danny can’t make it and you see Isaac. He’s nice.

Medical supplies are delivered every Sunday. You’re thankful you and Stiles mutually decided to get your own apartments after living in each other's pockets grew less exciting, so there’s space to store it all and no one to question it. There are questions you should ask. Where does the money come from? Why do I have a bodyguard? Is this legal?

You don’t ask because you don’t need answers, you need the smile a kid gives you around a lollipop after you’ve given them immunization shots and the relief on their parents faces. The sight reminds you to call your mother and tell her you love her.

It’s not complicated.

You wake up, you dress, you go to work. You greet your new boss, you do your job, you eat lunch with a murderer every Tuesday and Thursday. He’s never told you about the people he’s killed and you never ask about what it feels like. You talk about video games you grew up playing and bands that should get back together and sport practices you actually miss from high school. 

Then you make out in the supply room with your hand gripping tight on his blond curls and the heat of his tall body scorching the places it meets yours. Some days, well some days you wake up in his bed.

That’s a little complicated.

When you wake up one Friday and neither Danny or Isaac wait outside your apartment building you start thinking maybe life is more complicated than you thought. You call Deaton for the first time since moving to L.A. to inform him. He grounds you like a teenager. That’s the way you want to think of it, because ‘house arrest’ isn’t a term that belongs in your uncomplicated life. 

You spend the day useless on your couch, fall asleep watching a nature documentary, and wake up to the sound of David Attenborough’s dulcet tones and your best friend shuffling into the apartment. There are bruises on his neck and a shaking in his hands and he doesn’t meet your eyes.

Your father used to say you were attracted to broken things. When Stiles’ mother passed you hated the silence, so you bought and sent a multiplayer game you could both play. When you noticed him disappearing again you asked for money that birthday so you could pay for his flights. When your fathers died you moved in together. And now you crouch beside the bathtub as he sits pale and motionless under its spray and you think maybe your father wasn’t fully right, but he was onto something. 

Because that glint you see in Stiles’ eyes, you see the same thing in Isaac’s, and you see it in the rescue animals at the clinic. When the world breaks you, your only options are to stay down and die or get up and breathe. It’s that strength, the fortitude to stand on broken limbs like a big middle finger to whatever knocked you down, that’s what you’re waiting for. That’s what keeps you coming back.

You want to see the bird fly.

x

New Years has never been Derek’s day. He needs no reminder of the passage of time. His charcoal suit has stiff shoulders and the white shirt collar is high, like armour fastened neatly into place to protect him from the violent night ahead.

“You’re to see Deucalion and Kali don’t make it to the New Year,” His words are for the man behind him, yet his eyes stay focused on the mirror ahead. He straightens the satin pocket square.

“Understood.”

A phone's muted vibrating interrupts the air. The beta pulls out his device.

“Excuse me, sir”

Derek nods absently and rocks back on his heels in front of the vanity. The short beard he’s started to favor is perfectly trimmed, not a single hair out of place. He pinches both of his lapels and runs his fingers down the pressed crease of them. He can feel each thread under his fingertips, unhindered by calluses he no longer has. He savours the silence before the storm of noise and organized chaos he knows the party downstairs will be.

“It’s for you, Alpha,” Derek turns around and arches his brow at the beta standing in the doorway. 

He’s older, a beta of his mother's generation and highly respected amongst the other men. He seems irritated, not threatened, as he offers the phone to Derek. Without further explanation for what to expect Derek presses it to his ear.

“Hale.”

“Do you have any idea how ridiculous it is to get ahold of you,” says a voice full of righteous fury. 

Derek resists the smile that tugs at his lips and turns to hide his reaction from the beta.

“That is no mistake,” he replies, unsure if he manages to say it as seriously as he would like, “how’d you manage?”

“Nuh-uh, can’t go selling out sources, now can I?”

“Lydia?”

“Damn, you’re good.” Derek smiles now.

“Was there a point to all of your effort?”

“Yeah, dipshit. Happy fucking birthday.” 

He is the first, and the only, person to wish Derek well today. Most are purposefully unaware of the date and those who do know, know better. It’s different coming from Stiles, but it still takes him a moment to clear his throat and reply.

“Did you get me a present?” He forcefully teases.

“Yeah, finally convinced Jay to put in the overhead mirror.” 

Derek huffs and tries not to let the mention of Jackson sour this. He can hear Stiles breathing on the other line and he can feel the seconds passing, but he doesn’t want to leave this moment, so he keeps the line open a little longer to test how far he can stretch it. He wishes Stiles would fill the silence like he usually does. He wishes he could listen to his voice flow over vowels and get caught on consonants and witness the inside of his mind for just a little while. But he doesn’t, and the line stays silent.

“Goodnight, Spark,” he says finally.

“Goodnight, Alpha.” He savours it.

He looks back at the mirror. The beta has smartly stepped out for privacy, but is no doubt waiting just outside the door frame. Another minute before he heads down won’t do too much harm. He leans against the edge of the vanity and replays the conversation already fading in his memory.

 

Hotels are often unpleasant necessities, but Derek has found comfort in the dark wood paneling and marbled floors similar to those he’d grown with. It’s lazy, he’s aware, but his surging confidence is enough to allow himself the luxury of lingering in this place longer than most. Maybe one day he’ll bring Stiles here, he muses. Fuck him under the crystal chandelier and hear his cries of ecstasy echo down the pillared halls. The thought puts a wry smile on his lips. Downstairs he strides across the checkered tiled floor and locates the final pawn in need of striking down.

Two thousand fourteen ends with countless glasses refilled and memories recalled and the same jokes recycled to new faces. Derek lets himself enjoy the bittersweet moments of it. Beside him Jackson’s face is flush, and though he’s trying to sober himself Derek can see the hint of a smile stubbornly remaining from the memory of the last joke someone told. Jackson is painfully drunk and he looks young, like the boy Derek remembers meeting and hating and admiring all at once. It hurts.

The countdown starts and the crowd of people start yelling and moving themselves around joyfully without caution. At seventeen and fifteen Jackson taught him how to waltz. Derek says goodbye to the man he once new.

The crowd yells "Two!” and he lurches. Jackson’s face shows shock when Derek holds it between both of his hands inches from his own.

“I know it was you, Jackson” Derek watches Jackson’s eyes closely as he says it, “you broke my trust.”

Around them the crowd is yelling in joy and clapping and Derek shoves Jackson away from him. He sits back in his seat and grabs for his glass of water. His mouth is full of it when a scream breaks out not like the rest. Panic suddenly dampens the air and people are moving frantically towards and away from the cause. Derek tracks it to a man convulsing on the floor by the bar. There’s a word whispered on everyone's lips. Fentanyl. The city is drowning in it. He stands and buttons his coat.

“Come on. We don’t need the police questioning how you entered the country,” He goes to walk but Jackson remains where he is. Derek looks at the back of his head. 

“Jackson,” he barks. 

There’s no response. Derek curses. The crowd has already thinned dramatically. In this city the drug crisis was growing, and it meant cops coming to thoroughly investigate, which meant they needed to leave. Now. 

“Jackson,” he seethes and rounds to crouch in front of the man “as Pack you remain under my protection. There is nothing I can do if you refuse to listen, either you leave now or they detain you here. I don’t have the connections in this country to get you out. Understand?”

Jackson shakes his head. Through the windows Derek can see the ambulance and police cars slide in front of the entrance.

He growls in frustration and near whines like a child begging a bully, “Damnit, Jax.” 

As with everything else, he does what needs to be done and shoves himself away from the table without a look back. He storms into the kitchen where chefs yell and wave at him, but it’s distant noise. All he can hear are sirens and the sound of two little children crying. As he bends into the waiting car in the back alley he spits, convinced the taste of spaghetti is on his tongue.

 

He’s informed by a beta later that night of Deucalion's condition.

“Kali was a clean hit, but Duke felt it coming. Jumped the beta before he could even aim. He got two thumbs in his eye sockets for his trouble, but he lived. Problem now is no one can get into the ECU to finish him off.”

Happy New Year.

x

1990

“What?”

“They said-”

“No, I know what they said. What do they mean it belongs to them?” William presses. 

Talia tightens her lips to suppress a sigh.

“They believe these three properties,” she outlines them with her finger on the map, “are in their territory, so any profit produced belongs to them.”

“But that’s absurd,” John adds insightfully.

“We don’t make profit off of the properties, that’s the whole point of… ” 

The bland look she tosses at Ryan quickly shuts him up. He folds his outstretched hand back to his hip. 

“So the plan?” he asks.

She takes a deep breath, “We pay them.”

“But that’s absurd!” Her husband says, bless him. Thankfully not all of the men she surrounds herself with are idiots.

“No, it works. Walker’s Clan won’t believe we aren’t squeezing profit out of the apartments, and we can’t inform them of what we’re actually doing.” John explains to the rest so she doesn’t have to. 

There are disgruntled murmurs but no one openly opposes the plan. So far. John cuts a look at her, no doubt picking up on the missing detail.

“I’ve got a feeling this won’t include the cloak of night and a briefcase?”

“Because you are a smart man.” She says and straightens herself. “Take a seat, gentlemen.”

It’s decided three betas will visit the buildings on Sunday night, just as the rest of the Walker Clan did in their own territory. The betas would step in for a bit and exit tucking or fiddling with money they had brought with them. No doubt a Walker member would be there to shuffle them up a bit and alleviate them of the money they believed was their due. The plan allowed the Walkers to feel like they’d won and would hopefully hold them off until Talia could decide how best to negotiate with their Head.

Everyone came home that night. A little bruised and shy of a few hundred dollars, but safe, for now.

 

“Mama! Mama up!” chubby toddler hands wiggled outstretched towards her.

Talia sighed, “okay little man, lets go.” 

She scooped up her son and planted him on her hips while she walked. Outside in the back yard the party was in full swing, something low key to celebrate John’s proposal to Claudia. Derek clings to her when she tries to drop him with his cousin and sister.

“Nooo,” he whines and she laughs while she tries to loosen his clinging hands.

“You’ll be fine Derek, Mama’s gotta go get the cake,” she winks at him, “You like cake?” 

He looks up at her with William’s wide pale eyes like he’s not sure what the right answer is. She kisses him on the cheek. 

“I’ll be right back, play with your sister,” She urges and stands up to find William looking fondly at her. He gets a quick kiss on the cheek as she passes on her way to the kitchen. 

A handful of forks are in her hand when a grim Alan startles her in the doorway. She puts a hand to her chest to catch her breath.

“Jesus, Alan. What is it?”

“Walker has arrived,” the words send ice down her spine. 

There’d been no direct contact made since the shakedowns and it had left Talia thankful for the time to think tactics, but now she sees she’s become too distracted. Afterall, she’s heard the rumours about their leader. Unhinged was a descriptor that was frequently used. Unpredictable, another.

“Where?” She demands and throws the forks on the table in a clatter.

“Waiting in the office with John and Ryan.” The sound of her footsteps is thunder before lightning, the war cry of a soldier before the battle, the siren sound of a methodical bell.

“An unexpected surprise, Ms. Walker, I must say.” She muses upon her entrance into her office, the blood in her veins electrified. The head of the Walker Clan stands in the middle of the room and looks as relaxed as if in her own living room. She goes to reply but Talia speaks before she can.

“Leave.” 

The two men, for once in their lives, do not question her. They exit the office with a small click of the door.

“Such an adorable family you-”

Meredith Walker drops to the floor inelegantly. Talia lowers the gun she’d tucked into her waist band on the way down the hall and takes in a shaky breath as she stands over the body, a single shot through its skull.

“Too close, cunt.”

 

Minutes later she walks into the back yard with a handful of forks and a small cake. She sets them down on the small picnic table and realises there’s not enough space for everyone to sit.

“Mama! You back!” 

Small legs stumble towards her and she catches Derek just before he face plants into the ground. He giggles and hugs her neck, 

“Wuv you.”

She tries to keep the smile on her face from wavering while she breathes in the top of his head, “Mommy loves you too, very much.”

 

“We have a situation in here.” John says matter of factly with his hands on his hips. He steps to the side to let the other two men in.

“What sort of- Holy Crap! Talia!” William yells and slams backwards into a bookshelf at the sight of the body where she left it.

“Shh!” She hisses. The children have only just gone to bed after the sugar crash.

“But I loved that rug,” Ryan says morosely from the doorway.

x

Beacon Hills. North of Paradise and south of Wonder. There’s a house in the woods no one’s touched in decades. It is the perfect safe house for Alpha Derek Hale. Boyd meets him in the kitchen large enough to live in.

“There’s a lot,” he warns. 

Derek blinks at him. Boyd shifts his weight. You can only warn a guy so much. 

“Duke ran, no paper trail but the word is Miami.”

Derek nods, “We can’t be sure he won’t retaliate, but considering Kali handled relations with their manpower I don’t expect him to be able to move his men quickly, if at all. I’ll be making my way back to base soon.”

Boyd had the same thought and was expecting Derek to say it, yet relief still washes over him like cold water soothing a burn. Stepping in for Derek when necessary was part of the job, he’d expected it even, but the title of Alpha did not fit well on him. He was better acting on plans than making them.

“Daniel was killed. Hit by a car when Isaac was shot by the twins, he’s healing in custody.”

“What do they have so far?”

“Possession and second degree, but we’re trying for involuntary.” 

Wearily Derek scrubs a hand over his face and holds his brow in thumb and forefinger. Enough time passes in silence for to Boyd continue. 

“Jackson crossed over the border in Montana, no sight of him since. Best bet is he’s with Lydia somewhere.” 

Derek drops his hand and waits for the rest. Boyd doesn’t hesitate, but it’s a near thing. 

“There was an… incident,” perhaps not the best word for it, “at Jungle. One of the staff found themselves in a situation they could not fully control. There was damage done to both the property and the staff member in question.”

Derek narrows his eyes, “Who was it?”

“Yes.” Boyd answers the real question.

Derek closes his eyes devastatingly slow and hangs his head. Boyd thinks that might be all. Faster than he can register Derek grabs a knife from the block and strikes it into the solid wood cutting board set on the island. The blade sinks inches deep.

“Who was it that touched him?” Derek demands. Eyes on the knife, Boyd makes an executive decision.

“Conrad Haberlind.”

There would be no telling Derek that he’d been the one to set up his lovers rape. Boyd felt no remorse for letting Dr. Haberlind take the brunt of this wrath, considering it had recently been discovered the doctor had a nasty habit of abusing his prepubescent patients.

x

1992

Her laughter is like snow fall, subtle shake of the shoulders and then a boisterous gasp as if she let it go all at once.

“Did she really call you that?” 

He nods, his cheeks heating from the attention. Claudia rests in the crook of his arms, now a permanent fixture there. They sit on the loveseat in the Hale house parlour room. Ryan and his wife sit playing a coy game of footsies in the arm chairs across from them. Ryan points his way.

“You should have seen him the day he met her, Clauds,” he chuckles and John ducks his head even more, hiding under the palm of his hand.

“Oh boy,” he mutters.

“He was a mess,” Ryan snickers, “thought he was going to piss his pants right there. Three years saying ‘Yes Sirs’ to Mr. Hale no problem. Talia comes in and he’s got sweaty palms.”

Claudia laughs brightly.

“Where is she now?” Hannah asks lightly. 

Ryan stills and looks at John. If they were in an old spaghetti western, like the ones his father used to put on during the weekends, a tumbleweed would have rolled past them as they searched their brains to remember.

“Bakery!” 

Claudia startles next to him when the answer comes to him a little too quickly and he exclaims a little too loudly. Everyone settles again now that they’ve got the answer. 

“She’s at the bakery helping a few people sort out their disputes. Like clinic duty but for Alpha’s.” He explains with a scrunch of his nose.

More power meant more loyalty, which brought more followers. Followers needed someone to keep the peace, and Talia had grown weary of inviting outsiders to the house. On the plus side, baked goods to go around.

“Where’s Will?” Claudia asks.

“Watching the kids again. Probably took them out to the park, he refuses to let them anywhere near the place.” 

A pity too, the pastry chef they’d found made the best cannoli in town. Those poor kids. He made a note to box some up for them the next time he swung by.

Claudia sits up from her perch to look at him directly with arched eyebrows. He furrows his back at her, preparing for the question.

“I haven’t seen him around lately.”

Tension fills the air when no one comments. John looks away and clears his throat. He didn’t realise Talia hadn’t talked with her about this. Even William, though he’d been brief with his frustration, had come to him and Ryan to vent and seek counsel. Talia was more withdrawn than he’d realised.

“They’ve been having a few disagreements lately.” He says off-tone, the rest caught on his tongue. 

He tells Claudia everything, yet it doesn’t feel right to be talking about the private life of someone he respects.

“He wants another kid.” Ryan says for him from across the room.

“Oh,” Claudia falters as she infers the rest.

Talia does not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We jump into Second Person :O I know! What was I thinking??? Now you discover the truth, I used this fic to experiment in my writing haha that's why it's such a mess! Oh and reading it back recently I realized how lacking in description it was. That's what I get when I read scripts all day everyday, huh? I will try to fluff things up a bit more in my next fic.... ;)


	7. Wolves Teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this is what it's like. To be a man, to have a family, to breathe, to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done! Thanks to my residency in procrastination nation this took longer than expected to post but we got there. Does anyone else feel that they cant read their own work? It's like I didn't notice all the mistakes in it until it was posted haha. The plot needs so much more work (what even happened to Parrish?? I have no idea where he went...) and I know the Sterek is weak here, as already explained due cramming it into a story that didn't actually hinge on it. 
> 
> I am toying with the idea of doing some naughty one shots between Peter/Jackson (what happened in the office hmmm) and Derek/Stiles (their first time in Jungle!) what do we think? What pairings or moments do you crave more of?

2015

“Waste of our fuckin’ time,” Markus mutters under his breath. He buttons his suit jacket and stands.

Derek agreed. He tenses and relaxes his muscles in lue of the stretch they beg for. Today marks a full week of delays spent in Washington while the Senate committee took it’s time conducting an investigation and scheduled a hearing. Seven days he could have been at home. Seven days he could have spent stripping the skin from Haberlind’s body. Regretfully, he’d sent someone to do it in his stead.

“Theodore Raeken,” Whittemore addresses the young man at the centre of this most recent annoyance. 

Derek has never seen the kid before, yet according to his claims he used to work for him. Or rather, the late Danny.

“That’s me,” the boy quips quickly from the stand. 

He’s young and attractive in a douchebag way and he is exactly Danny’s type. It leads Derek to believe this has less to do with himself and more a lovers tryst he can no longer ask Danny to fix discreetly.

“At what time did you receive direct orders from Mr. Hale,” Whittemore asks. 

He rests his hands on his hips, more to support his drooping shoulders than to intimidate. It must be keeping him up at night, Derek notes. He probably lays awake worrying Jackson’s actions will cost him. If he was smart he’d show up well rested and do his job, and do it damn well.

“I was told to-”

“By whom were you told,” Whittemore interrupts.

The kid falters, “Well it was Danny, but he-”

“To clarify, have you ever spoken with my client before?”

“No, but-”

“And so Mr. Hale could never have directly instructed nor coerced you to partake in criminal activity, could he?” Derek shakes his head. He does not have time for this.

“No.”

“And the person who, we suppose on your claim, was your contact has since passed,” Whittemore clucked his tongue, “a sad loss, but convenient for you.”

Whittemore glances at Derek to revel in the stupidity, then looks to the Senate committee, “You seem to be lacking a viable witness for the rather drastic accusations you have against my client, Senators.”

The boy on the stand looks gutted. Clearly no one informed him of the accident, a shame, but not Derek’s problem. Derek takes a deep breath to avoid yawning. He lets his gaze scour the committee and doesn’t find a trace of Harris. Good. The lucky man will be allowed to keep his balls, as cinched as they are.

“The matter of business your client conducts in the state of California combined with his questionable disappearance coinciding with the murder of Katherine Argent and Matthew Daehler are enough cause for suspicion to-”

“He runs a fully licensed and legal entertainment venue. One of many to be found in the state, I assure you. And disappearance? The man sits before you!” He waves his hands in a grand gesture towards Derek’s stoic position. “Argent and Daehler were known thugs while this man was earning a medal of valour. I digress, these matters are not what is on the table today. We are discussing if my client coerced this confused young man into criminal activity.” 

Now there’s a flame flickering in Whittemore’s breath, arms gesturing grandly about him like a conductor before the orchestra. 

“The answer is clear. Suspicion is for grannies and fools. The next time you deign to request our presence please ensure you procure evidence to back your claims.” He throws his jacket over his shoulders and motions with his head for Derek to do the same.

Derek stands as the bald suit bearing the title Chief Counsel responds.

“I assure you, we will.”

 

A flight and drive later he’s informed via Boyd of a past-due visitor. He makes his way to the study next to his own, the one which previously belonged to Peter. Someone has cleared it, but his uncle's lack of sentimentality meant little truly changed in his absence. It appears empty of inhabitants, but Derek slowly crosses the polished hardwood until he can see a shoe sticking out from behind the desk. Turning to face the room he lowers himself to the floor and sits with his back against the desk, his own shined leather shoe a mirror image of the one he’d seen.

“I didn’t understand.” Jackson says. Derek’s shoes need to be repolished. He scuffed them on stairs somewhere. “I tried… I gave everything,” Jackson breathes, “everything.” 

Derek folds his hands on his lap and listens. 

“The day I graduated from University my father was in a different country fucking a prostitute. I know because she answered the phone. He’d promised dinner at the shitty restaurant I liked. Food was crap, but it was the place we always went I was a kid, you know? As a f-family.” Jackson takes in a steadying breath after the fumble. “You know what I spent that night doing instead?” he laughs like he doesn’t mean it. Derek focuses on staying emotionless, removed. “Your uncle. He took me to a michelin star meal and said I had potential. Those words were on everyone's lips back then, but I didn’t believe them until they came from him.”

There are dust motes floating in the air.

“He was good at making people believe his words.” Derek’s voice is gruff, probably from the misuse during travel and the finger of liquor he’d swallowed on his arrival.

“I believed them for too long. And when everything turned piss sideways and Laura…” There’s a knock on the wood, like Jackson’s head or elbow has made contact with the desk. “Now Lydia.” 

Laura. The name almost sticks in Derek’s brain, almost drags a wave of grief over him, but he lets it go just in time. He doesn’t think about things like that. 

“This was going to be my office. He said if I stood by the Pack, by him and Talia and Laura, I had the potential for great things. And then I was in the fucking desert.” This time the thud of noise can only be caused by fists on the floorboards. Derek knows, because he’s made it himself before. “It’s been years, Derek. I just wanted an excuse to leave California for a while, to stand where I should have been all along. But now I’m here, and it’s empty.”

There is silence. No footsteps in the hall. No murmur of voices from another room. Maybe, if he listens really closely, Derek could make out the birds calling in the trees.

“Ennis, the chief council, he’s Duke’s man. He’ll keep hounding you until my father is in the ground.” Jackson says at last. 

The only useful thing he’s had to say so far.

"You're nothing to me now. Not a brother, not a friend, nothing." Derek says. 

He walks out of the office without closing the door behind him. There is no one else in the house, just rooms filled with shadow and echoes. Boyd stands at his shoulder, having waited in the hall for him.

“Nothing is to happen to him while Lydia lives.”

He barges into his own office and pours a generous glass, which he places before him on the desk to study. Little amber diamonds sparkle, one for every thought on his mind. He wants so badly to get on a plane, pick up Stiles from whatever life he’s living, and drive to the house he’d found in Beacon Hills. He wants to fall asleep to the sound of rain and crickets and Stiles’ thoughts about life in the stars. He wants to wake up every morning to the smell of coffee and pine trees and Stiles’ warm skin.

For the first time in years Derek thinks of the months he spent in Oregon. He thinks about Paige. He thinks her and Stiles would have gotten along and the thought makes him swallow the contents of the glass whole. He’s been foolish. Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results. He can’t let that happen.

X

After the bruises heal he returns to the club. It takes time to fall back into his routine. He keeps jumping at every touch, seizing up when he should relax into it, turning away when he should be asking for more. Not every client minds, in fact they generally tease him about becoming shy. It makes him think of Derek in a painful way.

The staff give him sympathetic glances and consoling talks. It does more to piss him off than anything, but he knows they get it. Most of them have been there. Jackson is nowhere to be seen. His absence leaves Lydia in charge and Stiles grows confident under her gaze, bold to the point of flaunting. The hitches still happen, but they have since he was sixteen and he’s an expert at smoothing over them. Now he recovers as quickly as he used to and they go unnoticed. Normal.

Normal is not Jackson accosting him on the floor.

“You’ve got four more hours and you’re done.” Jackson says from behind him.

Stiles spins in the dim light to find Jackson on the edge of a shadow, “What?”

“Enjoy them.”

Stiles hasn’t seen the man in weeks, but Jackson says no more before storming off. There’s something wrong in his tone, too harsh, too angry. Stiles struggles to keep his eyes on the outline of him as it blurs into the dark heat of the club. He recognizes the way Jackson moves through the crowd. Jackson walks like a threatened animal.

He never finds out more. The next day his prints are removed from the system and his outfits sent to be dry cleaned. The doors to Jungle close and with them his ties to the Hale Pack.

 

Stiles drops onto the couch with a huff. He is wrapped in flannel pyjamas and cocooned with a throw blanket around his head and shoulders like a hooded cape for a long journey. He’s sweating a little from the thick socks on his feet, the spring has been warmer than usual, but they’re too pleasantly soft to take off. The television flickers to life at the same time the apartment door opens behind him. He feels a body sit on the couch beside him.

“Frankenstein or The Wolf Man?”

“Wolf Man,” Scott says. Stiles diligently cues up the movie and the two settle once the familiar images roll across the screen.

“Kinda late, isn’t it?” Stiles says, but really it’s closer to early than late.

The sun is, in fact, moments away from rising. After a year of nocturnal living it’s a struggle to reclaim normal daylight hours. Most nights he gives up on his weak attempts to sleep and finds himself on the couch. The lifestyle change isn’t the only reason he tosses in bed. He’s made no attempts to find a new job, hasn’t even thought about it, in fact. It’s hard to convince himself he’s not waiting for something, or someone, when he’s staring at the ceiling in an empty bed. So, the couch.

He’s not the only one with sleep issues. Scott started staying over again, sometime just after the recent incident that involved Stiles calling him mid panic attack. The hours Scott comes and goes have become erratic and unpredictable, but any attempt to needle out information about it is shut down or ignored. It hurts. He knows Scott stays silent because he doesn’t want to lie, but it still hurts. Tonight must be different, because this time Scott slumps his head against the couch and sprawls his arms across its back.

“We’re scrambling,” he says quietly, “it’s like chasing tails every day.”

The admittance is so unexpected that Stiles flounders for a response and lands on a shitty half laugh. 

“Are you admitting that you miss cleaning up dog shit?”

Scott laughs just as weakly, “I wish it were the only shit I was dealing with.”

Stiles hums like he knows what he’s talking about, but he doesn’t. He hasn’t seen anyone since Jackson walked him out two weeks ago. Lydia won’t answer his texts. Derek… Derek never came back. Stiles doesn’t know what he was expecting, really, but it certainly wasn’t this. The tightness around Scott’s eyes isn’t from putting old dogs down, that much is clear. 

The tv entertains itself in black and white flashes of horror. Stiles watches it play on Scotts face, bright whites causing deep shadows to pool in the newly formed pits and creases of his skin before they disappear into the darkness and back again. From the other end of the sofa it feels like his friend is further away than the years he lived on the East Coast.

Scott rolls his head and catches him staring. Stiles doesn’t look away.

“You ever meet Danny?”

Stiles shakes his head. 

“Saw him running around Jackson’s office a few times, only knew his name ‘cause Lydia made a comment about codependency,” Scott winces and Stiles can’t place the look on his face. He narrows his eyes, “He was your boss, right?”

Scott nods and looks just over Stiles’ shoulder when he speaks. 

“Something like that. He died. Ran over by a car.” The air in the room vanishes. “I think he was with Isaac.”

Stiles watches Scott. Watches him try to say the name without flinching, but his voice dips, his lips waver and pull to the side. It’s slow, and then all at once Scott has his head in his hands and he’s crying like Stiles hasn’t seen since they were children and it scares him. It doesn’t feel real, like this is such a ridiculous thing to be happening the obvious answer is that it’s not. 

Scott McCall doesn’t cry. And if he did, Stiles Stilinski would not be doing nothing about it. He wouldn’t be appalled by it.

“What’s happening, Scott?”

Scott chokes and when he looks at Stiles it’s pitiful, wet with snot and tears. He tells Stiles about Danny and Isaac’s disappearance and when he learned of Danny’s death through the news. He tells Stiles about his unwanted promotion and the day they gave him a gun and the times he’s had to use it. The movie ends long before Scott starts getting louder with every word he says.

“I didn’t sign up for this sort of shit!” He strains to yell after talking for so long, “it’s been months and no one will tell me where Isaac is. At first I was just helping people, sick kids on the block and stuff, and then we were snitching out bad foster parents, and I could still tell myself it was fine, I was doing good things so I went along with it. Now? Now we’re chasing traffickers and dealers who sell too close to schools, but the thing with them is they fight back! I don’t want to be involved anymore. Hale has his guard dog on me, talking about being sworn in, telling me what I can and can’t do, asking me about Isaac. I think he,” Scott gasps for air to keep going, “I think something happened to him, maybe he did something and made a mess or got caught but I don’t know because we never talked about work, we just…” Scott gestures as he trails off.

“Fucked.” Stiles finishes for him. Scott scowls but Stiles shrugs. He’s got no room to judge.

“I can’t take Hale breathing down my neck when I know less than everybody else.” Scott groans.

“Derek’s back?” 

Scott scowls and throws a pillow at him, but come on, Stiles has been waiting to hear from the man since Jackson fired him.

“Stiles you ass. That’s all you-” 

Banging from the front door freezes them both.

“Police! Open up!” 

Stiles’ mind grinds slowly towards an answer. Something, something about that voice. Scott goes white, then leaps over the couch in a move Stiles has only seen in movies and faces the door.

“No wait, Scott!” 

Stiles gets an arm outstretched to lower the gun Scott’s pulled out of fucking nowhere like some damn vigilante just as the door bursts open to reveal Jordan Parrish.

 

The last time Stiles saw Parrish was when he’d been dropped at the bus station. Hell, the last time he even spoke with Parrish had been sometime before christmas, that’s for sure. Stiles keeps Scotts arm down and steps between the two so Parrish is forced to quickly aim his own to the ground, but he keeps a wary eye on the still armed Scott.

“Holy fucking shit, Scott, put that thing away. You too,” He narrows his eyes at Parrish.

“Stiles, what the hell is going on?” Parrish asks like he has any right to be exasperated right now.

“You tell me Rambo! I have a phone, in case you forgot,” he yells and gestures at the device on the coffee table, “Or there’s this thing called a doorbell, you could give that a try, yeah?”

Parrish glares at him, “I didn’t forget, you blocked my number.”

Stiles opens his mouth, ready to argue but, well, he’s got him there. He’d been frustrated and drunk and tired of dodging calls from the guy. Until now he’d forgotten about it and hadn’t noticed the lack of calls with everything else going on. Parrish used to call every Sunday. Game day.

Scott finally catches on. 

“This is Parrish?”

“Yeah.” Stiles says short and sweet. He remembers telling Scott about him and the threat he’d been to his father's cholesterol levels during their high school gaming campaigns. “Parrish, Scott. Scott, Parrish.” 

Scott looks between them, no doubt feeling the tension mounting like cinder blocks. Scott was always good at reading people like that. He backs towards the kitchen.

“You uh,” he stumbles in his backwards trek, “you want a beer? I’ll get you a beer.” 

He was not so good at subtly. With Scott gone Parrish closes the distance between them.

“What the hell have you been up to, Stiles?” he hisses, “What are you doing working for Hale?”

“I don’t work for him,” he tries, but Parrish has these really green eyes that see into the bottom of your soul and the rest falls out, “anymore. I was fired a few weeks ago.”

Parrish's eyes go steely and he sucks in air like he’s holding back from hulking out and Stiles dares him to say something about it, about what his father might have thought. He’s got his fists clenched and ready to smash into a face.

“Do you know about the trial?” Parrish grits instead and it knocks him off balance.

“What trial?”

“They’ve got a member of the Pack, Stiles, some kid named Lahey. He’s agreed to spill to the FBI in exchange for-”

“Liar,” Scott says from the doorway to the kitchen, his voice booming compared to their attempts at whispering. “He’d never,” he shakes his head at Stiles, “Isaac would never do that.”

“Stiles,” Parrish calls his attention back, “tell me you aren’t tied up in this mess, tell me when that kid goes on trial and brings down the Hale Pack you won’t be dragged down with them.”

Stiles’ throat feels dry and scratchy, “I won't be,” he says, “but Scott,” he looks at his best friend, the person he’s trusted everything with, the only one he’s ever told everything to, and sees his own fear reflecting back at him.

“What do you know about Isaac?” Scott asks Parrish.

“He was shot.”

Scott goes tense, but he keeps it together. “You’re sure?”

“I was there.” Parrish says it like he’s offended Scott would dare question him and Stiles has had enough with playing piggy in the middle between two posturing idiots.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Stiles holds up his hands, “What do you mean you were there? What are you even doing here?”

“Looking for you,” Parrish grinds, “at one of Hale’s places. The news keeps playing the bit about the death of the Pack member, but it’s not the full story. There was another one who got shot, Isaac Lahey. They took him into custody before he arrived at the hospital.”

“How do you know?” Scott asks suspiciously.

Parrish looks at him like it’s obvious. “He’s set to testify against Derek Hale next week.” He pauses when Stiles and Scott stare at him blankly, “The kids not just a member of the Pack, he’s Hale’s cousin. Every cop in the country is buzzing with it, they’re certain they’ve finally got it,”

“Got what?” Stiles asks.

“The key to destroying the Hale Pack.”

A phone goes off. Scott grabs it from where it sits on the coffee table and awkwardly shuffles between Stiles and Parrish to the front door.

“I gotta get this.” he mumbles and ducks into the hall.

Stiles runs a hand through his hair, his limbs shaking like they do on too much caffeine and not enough sleep. He keeps swallowing in hopes it will help keep the panic at bay. He looks at Parrish, really looks at him in a way he hadn’t during the surprise of his entrance.

“You’ve put on weight,” he jokes weakly. Parrish is no less toned than a bronzed statue. Swimming, if he remembers, which he does. May have fueled one or two teenage wank sessions, in fact.

Parrish doesn’t take the bait. “You can’t honestly be sleeping with him,”

“Scott? Hell no-”

“Hale.”

Stiles straightens and hardens his voice, “That’s not your concern.”

“He’s a murderer, Stiles,” Parrish urges, “they say he’s trafficking children.”

“They say a lot of things, don’t they?” 

Stiles has heard it all, he’s not oblivious. He knows, from Scott and bits he’s picked up from Derek, that the rumours don’t hold the truth, but protect it. 

“Last time I checked he’s the only man who’s given me a choice. And I choose him, Parrish. I will choose him over, and over, and over.” There’s an edge of hysteria to his words, it can’t be helped. His life has been a series of choices taken away and made for him by other people and the universe itself.

A slam comes from the hall. Parrish whips around to investigate and cautiously leans out of the open apartment door.

“He’s gone.” Stiles scrambles to push into the doorway alongside Parrish and they both fall into the hall.

“Scott?” he calls out, useless. It’s empty. Adrenaline instantly sets his heart racing.

Behind his shoulder Parrish asks, “If it costs Scott his life will you still choose him?”

x

He bites his fist so hard he tastes blood as the doors open. Isaac walks to the stand. He’s lost weight he didn’t have to lose, every bone pushing against the confines of his skin like it’s been worn thin on the corners. Behind dull matted curls his eyes are sunken and bruised. The rhythm of his stride is jarringly off, like his skeleton is missing a few bones and is forced to compensate in crooked steps. 

When he finally sits down after swearing in and looks up to the room Derek bites harder into the meet of his own skin as it happens. The second Isaac freezes, gaze locked over Derek’s shoulder. He watches Isaac’s bloodshot eyes find his in an uncensored display of horror.

“Mr. Lahey, please inform those in the jury of your relationship with the defendant, Mr. Hale.”

In the guise of shifting himself Derek nods minutely. He has never hated himself more than this moment. Years from now he will wake up in a cold sweat thinking himself to be seated in the unyielding hardwood chair pinned by Isaacs accusing eyes.

“Mr. Lahey, we are waiting.” The judge says. 

The audience adjusts themselves in creaking benches and scuffing shoes. It’s a full house. The jury lean forward in their seats with notepads ready. The transcribers fingers hover over the keyboard.

“I recant my previous statements against the defendant.”

Chaos.

“Mr. Lahey, what-”

“My claims were false. The stress of my recent injury and the pressure of interrogation lead to my false accusations. I must apologize for the trouble it has caused to all involved.”

“Another waist of my clients invaluable time,” Markus Whittemore pipes up over the chaos of the crowd and struts as though he’s putting on a display of plumage, “I don’t think you realise the impact you’ve had on his professional dealings and the immeasurable stress placed on his personal life. I believe you, the senate, owe my client an apology for all that it has cost him due to your poor organization.”

Derek doesn’t listen for the apology. He can’t look away from the hate boiling inside of Isaac’s eyes.

 

Derek returns to the main house. Every foot he puts down crashes onto the trail and jolts his joints on his run. Sweat rolls over every inch of his skin and the spiky tips of his hair stick into his eyes. Step after step, he keeps going until his lungs burn and his calves are desperate and still he goes further, past the treeline to the lawn and then Boyd is there at the end of the drive next to- next to Stiles. Derek comes to a stuttering halt. Stiles’ face is glowing with rage. Derek’s still huffing hard on the come down of his run when Stiles marches straight at him and pushes hard enough to shove Derek off balance and backwards a few steps.

“What the fuck?” Stiles’ voice cracks on it, his eyes wide and wet.

“Stiles-”

“No,” Stiles growls like a wild animal, “What the actual fuck, Derek? You- Scott-” Stiles is breathing just as hard as him and he’s not looking at Derek anymore.

Derek knows. He knew as soon as he yanked the kid from the vets office if he’s honest, but the deal was sealed when he grabbed him from the building that it would lead to this. Behind him on the bench in the courtroom, just over his left shoulder between Boyd and Deaton, had been the only person Isaac gave a shit about. Scott McCall. And the only reason he would have sat on that bench was if he were a full Pack member. 

He’d been sworn in the day before. They’d given the kid a choice, Derek tells himself. Everyone had choices, even if they were all shit. He couldn’t help that. McCall knew what was at stake when he made his choice to become a full Pack member, just as Isaac understood when he made the call he did on the stand.

Stiles has white fingers pulling at his hair and a look of anguish on his face. This was the cost of Derek’s choice.

“I did it for the Pack,” he says knowingly to deaf ears, “I did it for us.”

Part of him, the rational part, knows it’s futile, but a larger part is begging Stiles to understand. There would never be a chance to explain it to Isaac, but if he could make Stiles see the reason why gaining Scott’s oath had been pivotal. Some days he had to remind even himself that it wasn’t only his neck on the line. If it were, he would have walked in with handcuffs already on. 

The court did not want Derek Hale. They wanted the Hale Pack, every member and associate included. Derek had become a king burdened by the crown he never wanted. He doesn’t know how to say it in words Stiles would listen to.

“Stiles,” A voice calls. Derek’s never seen the man before, but there’s something in him that calls familiarity. His eyes are strikingly green. He stands with his arms crossed and looks at Stiles expectantly. It makes the hairs on Derek’s arms bristle.

“Who’s this?”

“No one,” Stiles starts.

“Deputy Parrish,” the man says, standing stiffly with his hands on his hips where a belt would naturally sit.

“Deputy?” Derek raises his eyebrows.

“Wait in the car Jordan,” Stiles says tersely and looks at Derek with a warning in his eyes, “I need another minute with Mr. Hale.”

The man grudgingly walks back to the car without turning his back and casts a warning glare at Derek. He stands at the open driver door and waits, watching.

“Deputy?” Derek reiterates and he steps forward to speak lower. “You’re talking to cops now?” Anger bubbles in front of the suspicion. Stiles wouldn’t betray him, he tries to reason with himself. But then he sees the glare aimed his way and his uncertainty brews anger.

“You were a cop once,” Stiles spits, “Do you remember what loyalty is?”

His hands fly before he knows it’s happening. Stiles stumbles backwards from the shove and Derek tries to follow to catch him, but Stiles strikes out with his fist and it strikes him across the cheek. The sharpness of it depletes any anger and the aftermath of its absence leaves him hollow. They stand, Stiles jittery and Derek swallowing blood and it’s like he can feel it, the physical presence of what they shared dissipating with every second until there’s nothing but air between them.

“You’ve destroyed us. I can’t…” Stiles says and his eyes briefly meet Derek’s and they’re gone just as quickly. He shakes his head. “I can’t even look at you.”

Derek listens to the gravel shift under every footstep Stiles takes away from him until a car door slams. And he’s gone.

x

1993

‘What was the name?” Talia asks. She turns to look at Ryan but her hair blows around her face. Irritated she looks back into the wind and pushes the strands out of her way.

“Moretti,” he says over the rush of wind trying to blow them over.

The sky is overcast, but bright in a painful way and both squint and grimace while they wait. She thinks of John and Alan in the car, sheltered from the marinas bitter wind chill. The boys had played rock paper scissors to see who got to stay in the car.

“I dunno, lovely walk by the water with the Princess here, I count that as a win.” Ryan had joked and escorted her down the dock.

That was seven minutes ago. The bastard was late. He’d contacted one of her men saying he was interested in doing real estate business with her, had a proposal that would benefit the both of them. That was all he was willing to say about it before they met in person, though she had a feeling it would be a laundering proposal, so here she was. William had taken the kids to see a film about talking animals. She wondered what questions Laura was asking about it, she wondered what parts would make Derek laugh.

“I think Hannah’s expecting,” Ryan says. 

Talia turns to look at him again, but her hair remains stubborn in its will to block her view. His eyes are out to the water, it looks like he’s smiling.

“Congratulations,” she says and swallows the phantom limbs wrapping around her body, it feels like William’s hug squeezing her until it’s hard to breath. Seeing his brother with another child might make him happier, but it could also make him more adamant about having his own.

“I want it to be a girl,” Ryan says, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “I’ll love them either way obviously, but a little girl. That would be nice.” He chuckles. “Listen to me. She hasn’t even told me yet, but I think I can tell. She’s smiling a lot, keeps humming those nursery rhymes even though Cam’s too old for them now.”

Talia watches her step-brother think of his wife with a glowing fondness in his eyes. She wonders if William looks like that when he thinks of her.

She sees two figures appear from the corner of a marina building and all thoughts of her family disappear. They are blurs of dark colour and she stamps her heels into the ground and wiggles her fingers in the pockets of her jacket to keep blood flowing as she waits. Whatever the man wants, he better say it fast.

“Mrs. Hale, a pleasure to make your acquaintance after all this time.” The man clasps her hand quick and firm in a cold leather glove. She pays careful attention to apply the right amount of pressure. She knows this man. She sees his face when she wakes in the dead of night.

“I’ve seen you before,” the words are out before she can contain them, her hands resting on her hips and she takes a step closer.

 

Five years ago she sat in the back bench of a truck. The weekend was spent with her father on an annual fishing trip he’d insisted on despite the surprise of her first pregnancy. Tradition was tradition, and she’d been secretly pleased when he’d started making arrangements to take the days off. It was one of the rare times his focus strayed from the still blooming Pack. His notorious road rage meant the ten hour drive was ritually done at night to avoid raising his blood pressure. Hours away from home they’d stopped for gas. 

She’d dozed in the backseat, sprawled across the pile of their bags and gear to sleep. Through heavy eyelids she’d watched her father disappear around the side of the gas station, presumably to the washrooms. The warmth of the cocoon she’d built was a strong pull, but she knew if she didn’t pee then she would be crouching in a bush ten minutes down the road if the baby shifted.

She sat up in time to see a car fly around the corner of the convenience store. Seconds stretched out as the car passed, one to note the speed of the car, one for the drivers face to light up in the headlights her father had left on, another to make the sliver of eye contact that would haunt her. Her stomach clenched as the car ripped out of the lot and onto the highway. 

Trembling fingers pushed the truck door open. Little puffs of her breath drifted away from her in the quiet chill of night and she crossed her arms over herself to cling to the warmth she could. Not until the damp greasy asphalt soaked her feet did she realize she wasn't wearing shoes. She kept going, filled with trepidation as she approached the building. Her hands covered her mouth at the sight. Her father lay there, propped by the white wall with his neck and stomach sliced open and spilling between his legs. One moment she couldn’t breathe, the next she was screaming.

 

The driver of the car stood before her now with a self assured smirk on his lips and teasing lilt to his words, “I’ve been known to make an impression.”

Her hand flies with the knife she’s kept tucked in her waist to slice into the soft middle of him. Wide shock is on his face and she memorizes every inch of it.

“You killed my father,” she whispers and then slices again, this time his throat. 

She shoves him backwards and, still clutching his neck, easily unbalances and topples into the water. The man who’d accompanied him is not slow to react, but Ryan is quick enough to entangle him in physical combat before he can shoot the gun he tries to aim at Talia.

“The car,” Ryan grunts between blocking and dealing blows.

Talia turns and runs towards the car with it’s engine already humming. A muted shot goes off behind her, but she would never see a shot in time to dodge and if it lands she’d know, so she doesn’t look back until she’s made it in the car. From the back seat she turns in time to see Ryan get flipped onto his back on the dock, but his arm raises to show the gun is now in his possession. Another dampened shot goes off and the man standing above Ryan crumples. The occupants of the car wait.

“What’s he doing?” Talia yells.

“The first shot hit him,” John says from where he’s watching stiffly in the driver's seat. 

A siren echoes off of the water. No one on the dock is moving.

“Talia,” She looks over wildly at Alan, adrenaline in her veins, “we need to leave,” he says calmly like you tell a patient they have cancer.

“Fuck you Alan,” she says and moves to get out of the car.

Arms wrap around her and try to pin her down. She bucks wildly, her elbow making solid connection with the socket of a shoulder in a pained gasp from Alan. She uses the moment to scramble to the door, but they’re already moving and the still figures on the dock are getting smaller the further they speed away. She watches the pavement below the open door and wants to do nothing but jump and run to the dock, to where Ryan- because he-

“Talia,” Alan yells as he reaches around her and slams the door shut. “I saw it. The shot was to his leg, it must have severed his femoral artery, even if-” he grimaces in pain as he holds his shoulder, “even if we’d been standing next to him as it happened we are twenty minutes away from the nearest blood transfusion.”

The car keeps moving under them but Talia feels like she’s drowning.

“What are you saying,” She hisses, angry because he can’t mean what he’s saying, and if he is he should say it straight.

He looks her in the eyes and gives a small shake of his head.

“Ryan’s dead.”

She screams and she yells and she feels like she’s standing in socked feet behind a rundown gas station smelling of motor oil and piss.

x

2016

Turning thirty four this year. He’s been to more funerals than birthdays. Motionless he stands next to Derek, a skill he has mastered, and observes the crowd. Illness usually meant warning signs, preparations, a chance to say goodbye. She hid it well. Too well. Everyone here is shocked and unbalanced by what they see as a sudden death. 

Boyd is close to indifferent. He’d rarely met Jackson’s wife. Lack of mourning leaves his mind and eyes free to constantly return to the woman standing across from him. The weather is overcast but he wishes he were wearing sunglasses to hide his staring. It’s not just the grief of the day, she’s changed. The way she walks, the way she holds herself. She is no longer the little girl he watched grow.

The ceremony ends quietly and the crowd dissipates. Cora stays where she is, so too does Derek, and Boyd follows his lead. They stand like solemn statues as pallbearers continue working the grave. Jackson has collapsed and sits on the ground with his back pressed against a nearby statue. Cora joins him. They talk quietly. Boyd can’t hear it over the men working and the November wind, he doubts Derek can either, yet they stay until Cora stands and walks towards them.

“I don’t care what happened between the two of you, you owe him this day,” Cora says.

“Cora,” Derek greets. 

From what Boyd knows it’s the first time brother and sister have talked in four years. She scoffs and scowls and marches away to a shiny black car and faceless driver. Boyd questions if he will ever see her again, or if it will only be at funerals that he catches glimpses of the woman she has become.

Derek walks to Jackson. He sits beside him. Boyd looks at the perimeter, sees the car holding Cora drive away, a distant figure motionless at another grave, and the grey sky that blankets them all. He doesn’t watch the two men beneath the weeping angel of death.

When Derek walks past him he follows two steps behind.

“McCall is to meet us at the house.”

He doesn’t reply. Derek knows he was heard.

 

McCall is on the steps to the house when they arrive. The kid’s spitfire. Fights Derek on every order and picks apart every decision. Boyd is certain it’s part of Scott still coming to terms with being a full Pack member, but Boyd kind of likes him, were he to be honest. He’s not afraid to call out bullshit when he hears it, and although he lacks his own plans or answers he’s got the right questions. Boyd thinks the real reason Derek keeps him around is because Derek is a martyr.

“Duke’s been unsuccessful in escaping North America. He’s still trying, but he’s running out of places he’s welcome.” Scott says.

“Derek, may I,” Boyd says. Derek doesn’t say no, so he continues, “It’s been well over the timeline of an organized retaliation. After the dismantling of his men the threat he poses to us is negligible. The attention his death would cause is more likely to get us in shit than any other course of action concerning him or the brothers,” he says, and not for the first time either, but it’s like talking to a brick wall. “The Pack is at its most stable. Revenge puts everyone at risk-”

“Enough.”

Boyd has caught himself using this word with his daughter. When she cries for more cookies, when she pulls too hard on her mother’s hair, when she tries to yell over him during a tantrum. This word comes out and she stops with wide, fearful eyes. He’s not sure if it’s the word alone, or the fact that he imitates Derek when he says it. She’s met her Godfather twice and both times she’d been terrified.

“Boyd, you have a trip to prepare for,” Derek says.

“Shit,” Scott breathes, “Derek it’s been years, he’s-”

“You’re excused.” Derek talks over him, not an uncommon occurrence. 

Scott is known to voice his opinions, although on this rarity Boyd agrees. Scott bites his tongue with a sour expression and Boyd shifts his weight minutely, ready for escalation, but Scott does no more than clench his fist and breathe heavily through his nose.

“Alpha,” he says curtly and storms out.

“Have you heard from Deaton?” Derek asks once they are alone.

“No,” Boyd frowns, “should I?” 

Derek doesn’t reply. He stares at the door in thought and shuffles the keys in his hands until he blindly finds the right one by touch.

“Find out where he is. Don’t let him know we’re looking.” Boyd follows him through the threshold.

 

The only trace he’s able to find of the man is on the visitors log for a state prison. Derek doesn’t respond visibly to the news. The ground beneath his feet feels like it’s tilting. Almost all duties of operation have been delegated to other prime betas in the Pack, leaving Derek with less and less to occupy his time. It sets Boyd on edge, the way he alternates locking himself in the office and running for hours at a time without meals or rest. Something is brewing in his Alpha’s mind and for once he can’t pinpoint what it is.

x

What he’s about to do is either suicidal or insane. The two are not mutually exclusive. Anxiety and hope try to propel him forward. Doubt and denial keep him rooted where he is. There is no immovable object or unstoppable force. It’s just him, and he’s already here. He sits in a car park and alternates looking out of the dark window and at the clock on his dash. He’s got minutes, possibly seconds. His gut twists.

A blue Jeep appears on the road. Derek can’t decide if he should watch it or not, so he doesn’t stare but he tracks it in his peripheral as it nears, and then it turns into the lot, and then he can’t sit any longer. He gets out and ignores the ringing in his ears as he smooths a sweaty hand on his t-shirt. 

He leans against his own car door and waits for the driver of the Jeep to get out. They don’t. Derek takes slow steps to the rolled down window. Stiles looks straight ahead. Derek looks straight at Stiles. It's been almost a year since he saw his face and Derek's eyes instantly covet the sight of him, replacing the memory of each curve with the sight of them once more.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t run you over.”

“I’m done.” Derek says. 

He watches Stiles run his tongue over his teeth and his eyes fight to stay forward until his curiosity wins and he rolls a look at Derek.

“With what?”

“All of it,” he stumbles on the first time he’s said it aloud, “the Pack. Being Alpha.” He shrugs his shoulders, “I’m done.”

Stiles jerks the gear shift and the engine cuts off mid cough. The driver's door slams behind him.

“Great, fantastic. You think that makes up for the shit you pulled?” he asks and suddenly he’s in Derek’s face, “You thought what? Quit while you're ahead and run into the sunset?” 

He shoves at Derek until there’s enough space for him to slip past. Shame rolls in Derek’s gut, he hadn’t meant to cage Stiles in like that.

“Stiles-”

“Eat shit, Derek.” He’s already at the door to the apartment. It’s not the one Derek visited before.

“I’m sorry!” He yells, frantic and desperate at Stiles’ back. 

The key is in the lock, but Stiles hasn’t turned it yet. He doesn’t turn to face Derek either when he speaks.

“Say it again.”

“I’m sorry for using McCall,”

 

Halfway across the country Deucalion is escorted out of a vehicle in an airport's loading terminal with a baseball cap pulled low and sunglasses hiding his empty sockets. He’s shaking hands with the men he’s paid well to escort him out of the country when a bullet pierces through his chest. It’s not a clean hit. The shooter doesn’t have the skill or experience his predecessors had, but a bullet is a bullet and Deucalion’s body is limp when it collides with the ground. 

Everything builds down neatly into the canvas backpack covered in ironic patches he carries on his back, and the combination of square glasses and chuck taylors make the intern badge around his neck near negligible. No one wants to deal with a confused and awkward college student when there’s an emergency to be dealt with. The outfit isn’t his, he and Stiles have always been close enough in size that their wardrobes were more of a combined effort than individually owned. Regardless, he hopes Stiles wont notice it missing until he has a chance to wash the gunpowder off.

 

“Again.” Stiles says with stiff shoulders.

“I’m sorry for the choices I made,”

 

There is a cell that holds a hanging body. The attending guards will never forget the scene, he’s strung up by strips of his shirt on a sprinklers pipe. The boys bare chest and angular face are smooth and cold and pale. It’s hard to reconcile that he isn’t a figure carved of marble. It’s the halo of curls shining under the lights that make his figure hauntingly iridescent. When they talk about him, he’s remembered as The Laughing Angel. They’ll say he made the wrong choice.

 

“Again.”

“I’m sorry I’m no better than them.”

Stiles finally turns around to look at him. Derek knows. Of course he knows. Every Jungle employee gets a background check, and when the Alpha takes a particular interest in one the first thing they did was dig deeper into Stiles’ past. So he knows about the men who treated Stiles’ body like a toy and left him discarded like trash. The last thing he wanted was to be someone who could so easily use a person like that. It took him too long to realize he already was. He can’t risk loose ends, he knows that, but intentions don’t matter when the action is the same.

“I’m sorry I made you believe I was.”

x

Jackson tilts his head back in the sun. The lake glistens like dazzling crystals in the heat of a sky blue day. Beneath his sunglasses he closes his eyes and feels the gentle rocking of the boat.

“Laura told Lydia about this place,” he says just to say something. “Put the idea in her head that we should try living in the woods one day, like it would be anything more than bug bites and sunburns.” 

He opens his eyes to see the sky. There’s not a religious bone in his body, but the mourning part of him, the yearning to not be alone, wishes he could believe she was there, somewhere. 

“She would have hated it,” he says with a tear in his eye and an uneven smile on his lips at the thought of Lydia without access to hair styling tools and running water, “but I should have let her do it anyway.”

He doesn’t hear the shot, doesn’t see it coming, doesn’t feel it when it hits him. One second he’s alive, the next he’s not. 

Boyd has never liked Jackson, but he never had it out for him either. At one point he’d been Pack. Despite what Derek said, that still meant something. Boyd throws a blanket over the body and starts the boat's engine.

x 

Stiles’ face is unreadable when he asks, “If I trust you, will I regret it?”

“Yes,” Derek answers without hesitation. He doesn’t know if he’ll get away clean. He doesn’t know how long the dream of paradise will last. He doesn’t trust the future anymore, but he knows how he wants to spend every current moment until it catches him.

“Damnit,” Stiles swears and he chokes a bit on a sad imitation of a laugh. “You’re not supposed to tell the truth.”

Derek feels like the heat of flames on his skin when he replies with a weak shrug. “It’s all I do.”

x

2006

The dining room is uncomfortably full of people, elbows digging into sides and narrowly missing heads and everyone is talking over each other as plate after plate of food is placed on the table and moved this or that way a few inches for good measure. Jackson has never seen anything like it. He thinks he likes it.

“Derek, for the love of the world, go put on a nice shirt. Lydia,” Laura’s hawk eyes land on his girlfriend, “do me a favor and don’t let him leave his room until he’s in something with a collar.”

Jackson snorts when Lydia rolls her eyes, but after the hour she gleefully spent helping him put together his own outfit he knows she’s secretly pleased when she glides after the teenager up the stairs.

“Cora, this is Jackson,” Laura speaks without looking at either of them and Jackson watches the little girl hang back behind her sister. 

She’s young and impossibly tiny. Peter and Laydia have told him pieces of the incident, no one calls it a kidnapping, but seeing the girl causes Jackson to realize he’d only thought of it in an abstract way. Now a kid stands in front of him with her hair hanging in front of her face and struggles to hold eye contact with him. She’s a child. The knowledge of what she’s been through makes him understand the rage he’d seen in Peter which he’d thought irrational at the time, and his stomach turns with his revelation. He looks away first.

“He’s Lydia’s boyfriend, you remember when she babysat you? She’s helping Derek but you’ll see her soon,” On cue the two come in, Derek now in a collared button shirt just as nice in quality as Jacksons but wrinkled like it’s been in a ball under his bed. 

Jackson watches him struggle with the choking top button under Lydia’s glare. Jackson soothes a hand down her back when she returns to her seat next to him.

“You did what you could, given . . .” he trails off with a smirk and she swats his thigh lightly, but there’s a hint of a smile on her face so he’s succeeded.

“Have you seen him? He’s worse than you when we met. Hey Derek,” Lydia says, “Jax is working with Peter. You guys should talk if you’re still thinking of going into law.”

Derek meets his eyes for a second before a new voice steps in.

“Ready?” There’s a familiar bald man at the entryway. Jackson’s seen him in passing but never been introduced.

“Yes, thank you Deaton,” Jackson notes the name when Laura says it.

“Actually, I’ve been meaning to say something about that, uh Laura,” Derek’s voice cracks and Jackson winces in sympathy. Been there. “I’ve been accepted to train with the LAPD.”

“What the fu-”

“Language,” Lydia nudges Laura under the table and Jackson has to hold back spitting a mouth full of water. The words coming out of Lydia’s mouth in bed last night could have drowned a sailor.

“You’re moving?” Cora asks and Jackson isn’t even part of this family, but he feels the panic when her eyes start to tear up in slow motion like a car crash.

“Derek,” Laura growls, “do you really think this is the appropriate time?”

Jackson swallows down the water so he can come to the boy's rescue.

“Hey, I think it’s fantastic,” he meets Derek’s eyes and ignores Lydia doing her best to grind his toes now that he’s caught everyones attention. “What? Seriously, LAPD? That application can’t be easy. It’s pretty badass.”

“Language,” Lydia hisses. He rolls his eyes.

“Congratulations, Derek,” he raises his glass a little in cheers. 

The kids just a kid, he figures. He’ll earn his spots and come home when he’s ready.

“Did you get the sparklers?” Cora pipes up and everyone stops talking so she’s heard. “Dad always got the sparkler candles for the cakes.” 

Jackson isn’t one for sentiment, and sure as shit not huge on empathy, but the big eyed look she gives her older sister makes him a bit sorry for Laura when she curses under her breath.

“Maybe we have some leftovers, I’ll ask the Chef to check.” Laura is out of there like a shot and the dining room sinks into silence. 

Lydia managed to give him the whole ‘ex-nay on anything fatherly or suicidal -ay’ talk before they left the house so he doesn’t risk bringing up the elephant in the room. He takes another sip.

“Your mother has great expectations for you, Derek,” the bald guy, Deaton, says, “I’m sure you’ll live up to them.”

Jackson shares a conspiratorial look with Lydia. Talk about heavy handed, the dudes starting to sound like Jackson’s father.

Heavy fast-paced footsteps cause everyone to perk up and watch the newcomer shove past Deaton. He’s holding a ridiculous cake that he lays on the table with grace. The cake will no doubt be insanely mouth watering, the bakery label is well known in town for producing the greatest pastry ever known to man, but Jackson is really hoping there won’t be any proof he ate something so- well so very-

“All right Cora! Good colour choice,” Lydia hi-fives the girl without a hint of sarcasm.

The cake is hot pink.

“Oh Camden, thank you for picking it up. I owe you,” Laura reenters with a few grey wires she quickly sticks in the cake.

“Please, debts all mine if I get a slice.” The guy says with a drawl Jackson can’t tell if fake or not.

The front door opening sounds like an alarm.

“Just in time! Here we go, on three!” Laura’s done something to the wires when he wasn’t looking and they’re like mini-fireworks on top of the cake.

Twenty years old and he’s never seen anything like them. He watches the sparklers, mesmerized, as Lydia drags him out of his seat to follow Laura while they all sing Happy Birthday on their way to the lobby. At the entrance to the hall he does a habitual check of the dining room to see if somethings been left behind and catches sight of Derek. 

The boy sits at a feast surrounded by empty chairs. Lydia pulls Jackson sharply into the hall before he has a chance to say something.

x

 

2016

A bird crosses the great expanse of sky in silent flight. His eyes track it until it’s path is hidden by the tops of trees that border the front yard. There’s a bumble bee dozing on one of the potted flowers lining the deck. He’s never seen one so close before, he can see the flecks of pollen clinging to its fuzzy body. Crazy.

“Do you think it will rain tonight?” 

Derek keeps his gaze on his hand, now intertwined with the agile fingers of the man who sits on the step beside him.

“Doesn’t matter,” he says. He can feel Stiles’ questioning look in the way his weight shifts. “It’s not the moon and stars I’ll be looking at.”

A hand covers his face and pushes it the other way.

“You’re horrible,” Stiles guffaws, “I can’t believe I chose this over delivery pizza. Do you know how long it takes to get to the closest place that doesn’t serve cheese on cardboard?”

Derek shakes his head, both as an answer and in response to Stiles’ joking attitude, and says, “But you did.”

“Yeah,” Stiles meets his eyes, a small smile playing on his lips, “I did.”

 

x-fin-x

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> zanniscaramouche on tumblr :) find the post for this fic below: 
> 
> https://zanniscaramouche.tumblr.com/post/612224847140012032/zanniscaramouche-heart-alpha-line-end-the
> 
> My first long fic! This fic is really missing one last scene from Stiles’ POV near the end buuut I got lazy and just wanted to push this out. 
> 
>  
> 
> Rate it out of 10, thumbs up/thumbs down, anything to give me a vibe on how you felt about it.  
> Bless you, your house, and your cow :)


	8. Series Continues

The HALE Series has continued to live! Simply locate and navigate through the 'Parts' to discover more in this 'verse. More will be uploaded throughout the next month. 

Be warned! Most of the parts are EXPLICIT smut scenes. Check the TAGS of the individual Parts throughout the series to keep yourself safe <3 

I have no plans to further this plot as it stands unless there is an almighty demand. There are other things I am very excited to be working on and will share ~ 

https://zanniscaramouche.tumblr.com/post/612224847140012032/zanniscaramouche-heart-alpha-line-end-the 

^^ some neat graphics on my tumblr! 

If you enjoyed the story, have any feedback, or would like to say hi, I'd love to hear it in a comment! 

xxoo zanni


End file.
